Why Ask Bob Dole How to Fix GOP?

Why are we asking a failed presidential candidate how to “fix” the GOP? And, of course, I’m speaking of Bob Dole who went on FOX News to say that the GOP should put a sign out, “Closed for Repairs.” His point was the party had moved too far to the right.

Say what?

What have the last 20 years taught the GOP? Apparently it hasn’t taught them that every time they put up a squishy moderate, including Bob Dole, they get soundly trounced by the democrats. The last two primaries were engineered by the GOP to allow the selection of their preferred, moderate candidates, Sen. John McCain and former Mass Gov. Mitt Romney! The party machine kept the more conservative states, especially large ones like Texas, from voting in the primaries until most, if not all, the other candidates have been forced out when their fundraising dries up.

As far back as the 1980s, George Bush Sr. was elected off the coattails of successful and popular (except to the media) terms of President Ronald Reagan. However, with the exception of the first war in Iraq, he governed moderately and was easily trounced by a more charismatic Bill Clinton (with the help of Bush enemy, Ross Perot running as a spoiler, independent party candidate.) Even though his son, another fiscal moderate, Bush “43” was able to sustain winning two elections, both were by the barest of margins. It’s doubtful that he would have had a second term had the people not felt more comfortable keeping Bush in after the September 11th attacks and resulting war against terror.

Ironically, the press portrays any GOP candidate as radically conservative. In the primaries, the candidate himself often runs to the right, though his record shows otherwise. To paraphrase Sarah Palin, you can put lipstick on a moderate, and call him conservative, but that doesn’t make it so. The people know the difference and every time a squishy GOP moderate is put up against a liberal democrat, the democrat is going to win. Conservatives were not enthusiastic about either Cain or Romney and certainly liberals would never vote for even a liberal Republican. It's become a track record where many have begun to wonder what side is the GOP on? The future of the GOP, if there is one, is NOT with political has beens like Bob Dole, but with an actual conservatives who can articulate what it means to be conservative over the media's minutia.

I am seeing a few glimmers of hope from a few tea-party supported candidates that aren’t afraid to butt heads with the senior bulls. Newly elected Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have both come out swinging and damn the proprieties of being freshman senators. They are quickly becoming wildly popular with the public outside their home states and are tipping the GOP RINOs, as well as battling democrats, enough for McCain to label the pair, along with Rep. Justin Amash, “wacko birds.” For the left wing of the GOP, who was as hopeful as the democrats that the tea party was a temporary aberration, they’d be wise to heed the saying on their adopted flag, “Don’t Tread On Me!”

AMNESTY!

FOX News: A memo by John Morton, director of ICE, shows administration orders to release illegals already in the pipeline to be deported. The administration is clearly making an end-run around Congress and lawmakers because they know they couldn't get amnesty legislation passed. Time and time again, this administration shows there attitude is: When the law gets in your way, just ignore it!

UPDATE: Just two weeks ago, John Morton appeared on FOX's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, stating that there was absolutely no truth to the allegation that this administration was pro-amnesty.

VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, it's true that they passed a resolution, false that you're doing that.

MORTON: The charges are, one, that we're pro-amnesty and that we're anti-enforcement. Both of those are completely false. The president's against amnesty. The secretary's against amnesty. I'm against amnesty.

In fact he came on the show to tell about their new program to catch and deport illegal aliens who have committed crimes (well other than entering the country illegally.)

MORTON: Secure Communities is a new federal initiative that is literally going to transform immigration enforcement. And what we do is we take the fingerprints from every person who's booked into a jail, whether it's federal, state or local, and we run it against both the FBI's database and against the Department of Homeland Security's database to identify criminal offenders in our criminal justice system who aren't here lawfully and need to go home.

But now it's surfaced in an August 20th memo that ICE has been quietly telling courts to drop cases against illegal aliens who are pending removal. The policy change, it's said could "affect thousands of the estimated 17,000 pending removal cases."

Earlier this month, Morton planned a visit to Arizona. At the same time, the justice department peruses an aggressive case against the new Arizona immigration law and tries to bury Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona with demands for documentation. Arpaio, the sheriff who draws a hard line on illegal immigration and is nationally known for his tent city prison and pink prison uniforms, is being investigated for alleged civil rights violations. Other Arizona sheriffs called Morton's visit a "stunt." Morton traveled to the Arizona border, along with Arizona Democratic gubernatorial hopeful and state's Attorney General, Terry Goddard.

Is Senator Scott Brown Turning his Back on Tea Party Voters?

There was a tea party in Boston on Wednesday. Conspicuously absent was the freshman senator from Massachusetts. Is Scott Brown not wanting to 'dance with the one what brung him'? That's what some asked as the newly elected senator stayed in Washington, forgoing any tax day tea parties.

It can hardly be argued that it was energized tea party members who ushered Brown into the seat previously held by Ted Kennedy. Some have said he is distancing himself from controversy, although it could be argued that he didn't mind that controversy when gave him the edge. Others think he doesn't want to be associated with the likes of Sarah Palin, who had a rock star welcome in Boston at Wednesday's rally. The NYT must have had to break into the liquor cabinet to be able to write a about a poll that revealed most tea partiers are wealthier and more educated than the general public.

Any republican politician snubs the tea parties at his/her peril. And Brown will need their support in 2012 when he's up for re-election. Elephants, after all, are known for their long memories.

Now Don’t Get All ‘Wee-wee’d’ Up on the Press!

Obama told Senate Democrats that the people don’t care about the political process and told them stop watching the news:

“[I]f everybody turned off your CNN, your Fox, just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics. The topic is politics.”

[Not to mention it's depressing watching your poll numbers going down!]

Obama added, that dastardly political news made it "difficult to focus" on helping people rather than, "how is this going to help or hurt somebody politically—and that’s part of what the American people are getting sick of. 

Cause they don’t care…process this and that. They just want to know: Are you delivering for me.”

Oh really? Maybe we all just need some PIE:

Obama and Rahm Emanuel Attend Joe Biden School of Public Speaking

Viva Las Vegas: “Oops I did it again,” as the Britney Spears’ song goes. Obama stepped off into it, talking trash about Las Vegas…again. Mayor Oscar Goodman is fighting mad…again.

President Obama speaking before a New Hampshire town hall said, “When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don't go buying a boat when you're trying to pay your mortgage. You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save on college. You prioritize, you make tough choices.”

Said Mayor Goodman, “I assure you, when he comes, I’ll do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington to visit his failures back there.”

“This president is a real slow learner,” he added.



Previously, Obama got Oscar Goodman heated up when, commenting about business fat cats spending habits, said at another town hall, “You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime.”

After this latest gaff, Obama sent a letter to the embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying, “I hope you know that during my town hall today, I wasn't saying anything negative about Las Vegas.” Yeah, right....


Maybe Rahm Emanuel needs to direct any future R-comments to his boss…or the mirror.

Rahm-bo finally comes out of hiding only to skitter back down his hole faster than Punxsutawney Phil on a sunny day. Emanuel was reported as privately calling some liberal activists "f****ing retarded" because they were running ads attacking certain  Democrats.

Emanuel apologized to Timothy P. Shriver CEO and Chairman of the Special Olympics. Their “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign is coming up on March 3rd.

Former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has a developmentally disabled child, jumped in the fray on her Facebook page, she posted:

“As my friend in North Andover says, ‘This isn’t about politics; it’s about decency.’ I am not speaking as a political figure but as a parent and as an everyday American wanting my child to grow up in a country free from mindless prejudice and discrimination, free from gratuitous insults of people who are ostensibly smart enough to know better... Have you no sense of decency, sir?

Mr. President, you can do better, and our country deserves better.”

I can certainly see her and others’ anger at Emanuel’s crass statement, but I hope this doesn’t get drug out. Rahm “never let a crisis go to waste” Emanuel should be let go, but there are other, more important reasons for doing so.

Emanuel and Obama have been apparently attending the Joe Biden School of Public Speaking and Emanuel is quickly turning into a neutered pit bull, no longer the front man, speaking for the administration. It’s not the first time he’s “gone dark” and dropped out of site with this White House. Last time was when it hit the fan over the alleged selling of Obama’s senate seat.

When an enemy is harming himself, you just step back and let him. Republicans and conservatives are being drawn into too many battles over what someone is saying rather than what they are doing.

I Agree with Obama: I’d Rather Him Be a One-Term President Too! (Part 1)

I pledge a spirit of cooperation and bi-
partisanship, to reach across the aisle and
work with those despicable republicans who
are to blame for all the problems!

Prior to the State of the Union speech, Obama was interviewed by Diane Sawyer, (who had put her big girl panties on and was trying to sound like a tough reporter).

At one point Obama said, “The one thing I'm clear about is that I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.”

Are you kidding me? He thinks that pissing off the public to the extent that he ends up a one-term president equals success? Maybe he should talk to Jimmy Carter on how that feels in between their discussions on their respective Nobel Peace Prizes and how much they hate anyone named Bush. However, I do agree that I would prefer Obama be a one-term president!

When Sawyer asked if he would still be able to hold to his promise about not raising taxes on anyone making over $250K, he neatly sidestepped the question by saying, "I can guarantee that the worst thing we could do would be to raise taxes when the economy is still this weak." Sawyer, of course, didn’t bother to challenge Obama about his non-answer.

It was the State of the Union address that was, “about as popular as a root canal.” Over seventy minutes long, Obama’s speech meandered through the blame Bush rhetoric to his plan to save taxpayer money by spending even more taxpayer monies.

Look, I know he’s not stupid, but he is arrogant. And arrogance can sometimes stand in for stupidity.

During the State of the Union, Obama demanded a spending freeze, but then said it wouldn’t take place until 2011. “That’s the way budgets work,” he ad-libbed after some rather loud laughter erupted from the gallery. (They weren’t laughing with him either.) But then he turned around and went through a laundry list of bills (and taxes) he wanted passed, including healthcare.

Only a week ago, most democrats were administering last rites to their health care bill after the election of Scott Brown as #41, giving republicans a crucial edge to stopping the Obama taxation express and striking true fear in the hearts of democrats up for election in November. After the Massachusetts election, most presidents would have stuck a conciliatory tone. Not this president—he continued to drive in the wedge and push his unpopular agenda. 

He was a cheerleader for “changing the tone in Washington.” The problem is the tone he changed it to was (still!) whining about the Bush administration!

“So let me start the discussion of government spending by setting the record straight. At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door.

I know that some in my own party will argue that we cannot address the deficit or freeze government spending when so many are still hurting. I agree, which is why this freeze will not take effect until next year, when the economy is stronger.”

See, in the progressive mindset, spending our tax dollars helps not hurts (unless it’s being spent on the military or other conservative ideas.) It’s counter to what logic dictates: in a down economy, you STOP spending, not spend even more. That is because in their mind, government is the solver of problems, not the free market. We’re just imbeciles who would be sitting in a corner, sucking our thumb if the government wasn’t here to help. Meanwhile, we are hemorrhaging money in amounts that will keep generations in debt.

The first thing Obama suggested, was taxing banks.

“To recover the rest, I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks. I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.”

Which they will pass on to us, the consumer, in the form of increased fees. I hated the Wall Street bonuses as much as anyone, but the banks shouldn’t have gotten our tax monies in the first place. It certainly didn’t stop a lot of smaller banks from going out of business (and the mega banks from snapping them up.) Now he wants to charge them a “fee” (read: tax). Businesses don’t pay tax. We pay the tax—when the cost of business goes up, they pass on the costs to all of us.

Inserts mine:

“To make college more affordable, this bill will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer-subsidies that go to banks for student loans. [Which will cause banks to cut back on making student loans.] Instead, let's take that money and give families a $10,000 tax credit for four years of college and increase Pell Grants. And let's tell another one million students that when they graduate, they will be required to pay only ten percent of their income on student loans, and all of their debt will be forgiven after twenty years—and forgiven after ten years if they choose a career in public service. [Who’ll be paying those loans back…why WE will.] Because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they chose to go to college. And it's time for colleges and universities to get serious about cutting their own costs because they too have a responsibility to help solve this problem.”

Well, let’s just give everyone FREE tuition and be done with it. Unfortunately, students (and their parents) sometimes make bad choices. It does not make sense to take out massive loans if you’re not going into a career where you can make enough to pay them back! If you’re going to become an English, journalist (heh), social worker or basket weaving major, go to a smaller, public university and work your way through or plan to get a major scholarship.

“And we haven't raised income taxes by a single dime on a single person. Not a single dime.” No, you just snuck it into the withholding tables. Did you notice the take-home amount in your paycheck went down from last year? That’s because congress lowered the threshold, raising taxes on wages across the board. So we’re back to playing word games again—it depends on what the meaning of ‘raising income taxes’ is.

(Part 2 Tuesday: Energy, Heath Care (again!) and Why was Scott Brown elected? Hint: They know the reason better than the electorate!)

Downtown Scotty Brown, 41, Future Presidential Candidate…what!?

Republican candidate for President?

The state that held the original Boston Tea Party had another tea party of sorts. Although the White House is playing the election down, no one in the real world missed the significance of a Massachusetts win by a candidate who is not only a republican, but a conservative, to a post held by one of the most liberal senators ever. The last republican senator from Massachusetts left office in 1979.

He referred to Washington as “the machine,” described himself as a “Scott Brown Republican,” corrected pundits that the office was “the people’s seat,” drove a GM pickup truck with 200K miles on it and was a high school basketball star with the nickname “Downtown Scotty Brown.” The republican buzz around Scott Brown was similar to that of Governor Sarah Palin: An independent conservative who will fight his own party if necessary and a populist, outsider candidate.

It was the culmination of a long year of protests on Washington at a Congress who had turned a deaf ear to the populace and had a general, “we know better what’s good for you” attitude. The media, White House toadies and Obama made fun of the tea party protesters. Now, with Brown’s election, democrats have stopped laughing, realizing their re-election is not assured. The health care bill is in doubt as many are having second thoughts about losing their elected positions just to get it passed. The president has given the people “change,” but not the change they wanted and the “hope” now is about making Congress listen, one way or another. Voters are hungering for a positive message that’s not just political spin. We long to hear about the “shining city of the hill” again.

“Four years ago, we raised a banner of bold colors -- no pale pastels. We proclaimed a dream of an America that would be ‘a shining city on a hill.’ We came together in a national crusade to make America great again, and to make a new beginning. Well, now it's all coming together. With our beloved nation at peace, we're in the midst of a springtime of hope for America. Greatness lies ahead of us.” Ronald Reagan, 1984

How refreshing that was compared to a president who travels the globe, bowing to foreign leaders and apologizing. Obama is antithesis of Reagan—in his mind America is not a great country. Just the opposite. One of the first things he did was speaking to Europe, the middle east and the UN, apologizing for America’s behavior. Most Americans certainly don’t feel that way and felt Obama’s “Apology Tour” only weakened us to both our friends and our enemies.

Many in the conservative ‘verse were hoping Brown would deliver the rebuttal to Obama’s state of the union. (He’s not—another new face, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, will have that honor.) However, some are already talking a presidential run for the attractive, charismatic young senator. Let’s hold on for just a moment…

Senator Scott Brown

It’s easy for people to latch onto and pour their hopes and dreams into a candidate. Remember Barack Hussein Obama? Even when he told cheering audiences exactly how he would wreck the country if elected, they only chose to hear, “Hope and Change.” When little is known about a candidate, voters tend to mold that person into their own ideal.

You might also recall a time when some in the republican party debated a constitutional amendment to allow naturalized citizens to run for president. All this came about when Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for governor. However, after his policies ran to the far left and his popularity tanked, you don’t hear anyone wistful that he could run for higher office.

So while we’re all excited about “41,” let’s wait and see what Brown does in office and hope he will live up to the hype of the campaign trail.