Political News and Election Info

– this time from Rebecca Rast, who whines that there is very little difference between Republicans and Democrats in Congress: The gap of opposing viewpoints between Republicans and Democrats in Congress is closing. The fears of a Tea Party takeover in Congress from the 2010 elections are far gone, and in fact, should now be laughed at. Republicans had their opportunity, as the leading party in the U.S. House of Representatives, to take a stand — the stand they promised they’d take to the American people — to fight against frivolous government spending, overregulation of the private sector and to put America back on a path to prosperity. Where does the health of America stand two years after those promises were made? The country now boasts a national debt of $15.3 trillion — now exceeding the national economy, which at the end of 2011 came in at $14.95 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The much-too-low unemployment rate touted by the Department of Labor of 8.3 percent is more accurately estimated to be closer to 11 percent. Also, in 2011, Congress increased spending from the year before, raised the debt limit by $2 trillion, and funded ObamaCare. And you can’t forget about Congress’ most recent move: extending the payroll tax cut along with unemployment benefits — with absolutely no way of paying for it. For all of this to have happened the U.S. House, again with Republicans in the majority, had to agree to it — and that they did. What has happened that caused Republicans, who stand on a platform of fiscal conservatism and smaller government, to have seemingly forgone these values in exchange for the status quo? Why aren’t they standing up for the core conservative values on which they campaigned? Under this House Republican leadership, compromises have been few and more often than not the true conservative agenda has been put aside in order to appease Democrats in the Senate and White House. How, two years after a huge nationwide movement like the Tea Party, has so much changed? Does getting a taste of the power and prestige of Capitol Hill strip a member of his core ideals? Does feeling the pressure of having to kowtow to leadership cause new members to buckle? Or maybe it’s the desire to keep ones job because, after all, two years really isn’t enough to accomplish all you want, right?! Or is it some kind of strategy, whereas after the elections if Republicans retain a majority in the House they can throw all these concessions in the face of Democrats and claim the nation hasn’t improved so now they get to do things their way? Regardless of the reasoning or explanations behind this new sheepish Republican majority, it is bothersome. How can you know that who you elect will fight for your rights and protect your interests? But then again, this is the joy of a democratic form of government, in two year’s time House members can be gone as quickly as they came. Until November rolls around, I think all voters who associate themselves with the Republican Party deserve to see a change in the House of Representatives. After the payroll tax debacle, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said , “I think we’ll get through this moment and the dust will settle and people will see the differences [between political parties].” He better hope he’s right. Members of that Chamber need to get back to the basics of why they are in charge and not be afraid to throw their weight around. America is in trouble and every move made thus far has only plunged the nation further into debt. If there was ever a time for fiscal conservatism to come to fruition in the halls of Congress, now is that time. Poor Ms Rast: an ideologue in a time of accommodation. An extremist in a time of collegiality. A fighter in a time of lovers. A conservative in a time of Republicrats. Is there anything more sad than such an agitated, impotent creature, kicking and screaming against the tide of dialectical materialism and the Will of the Utopian Dreamers born to save us all from ourselves? Honestly. It’s very unseemly. Best she should just get her ass in line. To borrow a phrase.

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More unhelpful Visigothery

Next Tuesday’s Missouri primary is little more than a “beauty contest.” It’s a non-binding primary that doesn’t even have Newt Gingrich on the ballot because he failed to qualify. On March 17th, Missouri holds  a caucus that will determine how the delegates will be allocated among the candidates. But for this upcoming non-binding primary, Newsmax reports that Rick Santorum leads Mitt Romney 45% to 34%. Ron Paul gets 13%. I’m not sure if Gingrich has qualified for the March Missouri caucus.

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Missouri Primary Poll – Santorum 45 percent, Romney 34 percent, Ron Paul 13 percent (Gingrich didn’t qualify for the ballot)

Don’t think it’s lost on us that you are the same people who were saying that a vote against debt ceiling increases would be a vote for Obama, and that to hold the line against further increases marked us as naive and unnuanced (right before the credit downgrade you pretended your capitulations would prevent); the same people who called us Hobbits for demanding the GOP stay good to its word on spending cuts, rather than fold yet again in the face of pressure from an activist media working on behalf of progressive Democrats; the same people who chide us about our desire for “purity” and a “True Conservative” when the fact is, all we really want is a nominee who, say, hasn’t implemented socialized health care or spoken earnestly about the necessity of regulating human exhalation or engaged in a full-throated defense of ethanol subsidies or warned against the heartlessness of not providing illegal aliens tuition waivers or or blamed the US for the deaths of 3000 citizens or joined in the populist attacks on capitalism such that they sound like caricatures from an Oliver Stone movie. That is, for all of you “electability conservatives,” don’t think it’s lost on us that you have once again taken our support for granted — that in your desire to win over “moderates” and “independents,” you’ve marginalized, diminished, and demonized your party’s base, sneering at those who won’t join you in rallying behind a man who rejected Reagan; that you’ve spent months since the 2010 elections chiding principled conservatives for their “extremism” and “fringe” beliefs in an effort to convince unprincipled middle voters that you really aren’t so bad and icky and heartless as the media is going to depict you no matter the Republican nominee; that you’ve chosen party over principle yet again. You’ve sold us out. And while you can offer any number of earnest rationalizations for doing so, the fact of the matter is, when push comes to shove, you simply aren’t prepared to fight for conservative beliefs — assuming you ever had them in the first place (some of you do, some don’t, and many, I’ve come to believe, haven’t the first idea what conservatism even is ). And though you’ll work to shame us for saying so, that won’t change the underlying truth. Have a nice day.

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A note to the GOP leadership and all the establishment conservatives who will now begin telling us it’s our duty to rally around Mitt Romney

According to one of the biggest Marxists in the United States Senate, from Obama’s home state of Illinois, if the 2012 elections are a referendum on Obama, then Democrats are in trouble. Well Dicky, you’d better sound the alarm bell because the 2012 elections are going make the 2010 elections look like small potatoes. Daily Caller quotes Durbin as saying: “If it is a referendum, then we’re in trouble because the economy’s not good and people’ll say, ‘well, I just want to make it clear I don’t like the way things are,’” Durbin said. But in Dicky’s warped little Marxist mind, he of course doesn’t think the elections will be about Messiah Obama. Personally, I say to Dick Durbin and the rest of the Marxistcrats, keep your arrogance going and keep thinking that way. It will just make November 2012 that much sweeter.

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Dick Durbin – If 2012 is a referendum on Obama, then Democrats are in trouble

Greg Sargent and Kevin Drum seem to think so, at least conditionally — one idea being that, as Greg wrote me on Twitter, “people support jobs creation policies but see govt failing to enact them,” the upshot being that anti-government sentiment may be a product of ineffective government, not just a government that has grown too big. To lay the foundation for the thesis, Sargent points to a Pew Economic Mobility Project chart noting that 54% of Americans believe that government helps the rich “a great deal”, while only 6% believe the government helps people like them . Sargent writes: Why is it so widely assumed that polls showing high distrust in government automatically support the conservative narrative? It’s true that multiple polls have shown recently that trust in government to do the right thing is at abysmal lows. And when those polls come out you routinely see Republican operatives Tweeting them gleefully. But the problem with those polls is they don’t probe why distrust in government is running so high. For all we know, some of the reasons for it could also support the liberal narrative. For instance, what if anti-government sentiment is running high because Congress isn’t passing jobs creation and fiscal policies — including tax hikes on the rich — that are supported by large majorities of the American people? Folks who aren’t tuned into the details of Senate procedure might not know why government isn’t acting on those policies; they might just see government failing them even as the crisis continues, and react accordingly. Majorities say they want higher taxes on the rich and say wealth should be more even in this country. Congress isn’t hiking taxes on the rich. Fifty four percent tell Pew government protects the rich a “great deal,” versus a tiny minority who say they are getting helped by government. And at the same time, distrust in government is at historic highs. You think those things might be related? And how does all that bolster the right’s argument? First off, let me just say that I believe Sargent overstates the degree of anti-government sentiment on the liberal left; but even taking his hypothetical at face value, what are we to make of the idea that anger at government is anger at the government’s failure to take and redistribute more wealth, or create more government programs — all of which would require higher taxes, more deficit spending, and greater debt? Or better, what do we make of the suggestion that anti-government sentiment doesn’t overwhelmingly redound to the “conservative narrative”? My contention is that contemporary movement conservatism is almost by definition anti-government (that is, an explicit rejection of a government that has far exceeded its Constitutional mandates), and that it was the TEA Party, with their anti-big government, pro-Constitution message that overwhelmingly carried the 2010 elections. And while it’s likely true, as Sargent and Drum assert, that many who self-identify as “liberal” have adopted an anti-government sentiment since 2010, it is worth plumbing their arguments to find out just how “liberal” these governmental critics are. On the one hand, the logical end to those demanding ever more government to assure a kind of enforced social egalitarianism is a socialist police state; without such a system, enforcement of equal outcomes would be impossible, and disparities of income would return as a matter of course. Not surprisingly, Utopia requires a ruling class to keep order — and socialism generally stalls at its fascist stage. On the other hand, there are those railing against banks, or Wall Street, or “the rich” because they believe Big Banking or Big Corporations are responsible for the income disparity they’ve been taught to watch out for. And yet a closer look reveals that what those people are railing against, though oftentimes they don’t realize it, is precisely the kind of crony capitalism that marks a corporatist economy — that is, liberal fascism — itself posited as a necessary stage in the transformation from a capitalist society to a centralized socialist state by none other than Edward Bellamy in his Utopian blueprint, Looking Backwards . That is, they are railing against the transition to democratic socialism and away from free market capitalism. – All of which means that, far from adopting a leftist or liberal stance, these protesters — though they may identify with liberalism or the left — are actually adopting a conservative position, one that finds a home in, eg., the populist conservative rhetoric of Sarah Palin, or the libertarian rhetoric of any number of free market economic theorists, which rejects the kind of government “partnerships” with big business that create cozy government / client relationships. Cass Sunstein this ain’t. Where Sargent errs is in conflating “conservative” with Republican. The “conservative narrative” is not necessarily the Republican narrative, as any who’ve followed the GOP establishment’s clashes with the TEA Party implicitly understands. Republicans may be too quick to claim benefit from anti-government sentiment. But conservatives should take heart that, if anything, the underpinnings of their philosophy is crossing the political divide, much as it did with Reagan Democrats in the 70s and 80s. Many of those who are angry at government and identify politically with the left aren’t angry because they reject capitalism (those who do are a loud, drum-circling minority). Instead, they are angry at the kind of capitalism that is the result of cozy relationships between government and corporations. They’ve been taught to direct their ire toward Big Business. But what they want is the separation of business and government — and that is a fundamentally conservative, anti-big government, free market stance. Which benefits the conservative, constitutionalist movement. Discuss.

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Are conservatives overconfident about their ownership of anti-government sentiment?