jeb bush

I never in my wildest imagination would have envisioned Obama’s nation. It probably should be better known as the Obamination. In retrospect it’s hard to believe that the American electorate voted Barack Hussein Obama into office… any office. This is a very shallow man. The people he has surrounding him are, for the most part, shallow sorts also. Few have ever had employment outside of feeding at the public trough. The rest of them come from academia which these days equates to naive Marxist/Leninist Keynesian theorists… which is to say they know nothing.

This country, according to Obama, is a racially charged battleground with hordes of angry white cops chasing hapless, poor Mexican ‘braceros’ around the ‘burbs. At least that’s what the liar-in-chief would have you think about a State, Arizona, driven to protect itself and its citizens from the invasion of illegals/criminals flooding across our unprotected borders, most particularly our southern border.

That most of the people coming across happen to be latino has no bearing on the meaning of the word illegal. Again I’ll ask it, what’s not to understand about ‘illegal’? It doesn’t matter if it’s Chinese smuggling themselves in here in containers or people overstaying their visas. There is no difference at all, and country of origin has nothing to do with it.

The tone coming from President Obama is arrogant and despicable. For him to assert that Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration is ‘ill considered’ is patently absurd in the face of the US Government’s criminally negligent management of our borders and ports. What twisted rationale permits illegals to attempt to claim the high ground in a Marxist inspired effort to suborn our laws, our Constitution and the sovereignty of our nation?

One of the few legitimate functions of our Federal Government is the defense of our borders. There has been systemic failure after failure at the Federal level to enforce our immigration laws for decades. Both parties are amply guilty on this, the left more so than the right, but there’s plenty of finger pointing and blame to go around. We intend to stop that cold in November. One of the major Patriot goals is just that. We intend to hold both parties up to intense scrutiny… we intend to hold people to task. We will be a much more activist American electorate and the American people will be much wiser in the future… though far poorer for the experience.

Now we have leftist politicians lining up against a State which has, by any definition, a war on its southern border. Very disappointed in a couple of Republicans too. We’ve had about all of phony Republicans that we can stomach. Jeb Bush should shut the hell up while we’re at it. He’s lost whatever favor he had garnered from me. Is he his brother in disguise? States around Arizona had better be warned. Tens of thousands of illegals will be bailing out and heading for other states… many of them criminal and dangerous.

Barack has picked another battle which will play very poorly in November. The illegal issue is as big a hot button for most Americans as the health care ripoff is. What the left simply hasn’t figured on is the increasing anger of the American people. They’ve always depended on the traditional short memory of the electorate. It hasn’t happened this time. With every new revelation baring more lies and deceit, the Democrats are facing an aroused populace and a popular grassroots Patriot movement that will not go away. The attack on the Arizona law is Obama’s latest race bait. You can bet it won’t be his last.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

If we're going to successfully renew popular support for conservative ideas, the right must capitalize on opportunities to demonstrate how we offer a better vision for America than the left. Florida's success story with education reform is a good example.

Since the 1960s, liberals have backed a failed strategy for improving education -- increasing government spending, growing the federal bureaucracy, and largely resisting serious reform efforts at the state and local level.  Over time, per-pupil spending has doubled and the Washington bureaucracy has ballooned.  But we’ve seen little improvement in student learning.  Millions of kids continue to pass through the nation’s public schools without receiving a quality education.  

Unfortunately, we should expect more of the same from the new administration and congressional majority.  But this will give conservatives a real opportunity to offer parents and taxpayers a more compelling vision for improving education.  A vision based on conservative principles -- limiting Washington’s ineffective role and offering a broad reform agenda at the state and local level.  Growing evidence shows that unlike federal intervention, aggressive-state level reform can deliver real progress.

Thanks to the leadership of former Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida is proving that conservative education reforms work. Over the past decade, the Sunshine State has enacted sweeping reforms, including quality testing and transparency reporting, ending social promotion, improving classroom instruction, and strengthening teaching by offering performance pay incentives. Florida also leads the nation in offering parents the power to choose the best school for their children.  

These reforms have led to dramatic improvement. Since 1998, Florida students have made impressive gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, far outpacing the national average. Importantly, the biggest strides have been made by Hispanic and African-American children. In fact, Florida’s Hispanic students now have higher NAEP reading scores than the statewide average of all students in 15 states (see map below).

Crossposted at The Rockefeller Republican