Tag: Paul Ryan

McCarthy Withdraws From Speaker’s Race. Vichy Republicans Have a Hissy Fit.

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

untitled (5)Going into the beginning of the process of selecting a new Republican Speaker of the House, there was an expectation of drama on Capitol Hill.

However, that expectation turned out to be an underestimation.

The Washington Post reports that

The sudden decision Thursday by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) to withdraw from the speaker’s race thrust congressional Republicans into chaos and left the contest wide open, with a crowd of lesser-known players jockeying for power and rank-and-file members fretting that the political unrest on the hard right that drove McCarthy and House Speaker John A. Boehner away from the position has left the party unmanageable in the lower chamber.

Conservatives seized the moment as McCarthy made his exodus, celebrating the departure of one of the GOP’s moderates and fastest-rising stars — and pledging to push for one of their own, a hard-liner on fiscal and social issues, to step forward in the coming weeks before the leadership elections are rescheduled. McCarthy’s associates, many hailing from mainstream Republican districts, urged caution and began efforts to draft another centrist Republican to succeed Boehner (Ohio).

Boehner personally asked House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to run for speaker over two long phone conversations, according to two sources familiar with the exchanges. Boehner has told Ryan that he is the only person who can unite the House GOP at a time of turmoil.

“It is total confusion — a banana republic,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a Boehner ally, as he recounted seeing a handful of House Republicans weeping Thursday over the downfall of McCarthy and the broader discord. “Any plan, anything you anticipate, who knows what’ll happen. People are crying. They don’t have any idea how this will unfold at all.”

The scene at the Capitol yielded more questions than answers by the hour Thursday afternoon, with an array of influential figures such as  Ryan still reluctant to take McCarthy’s place as the consensus candidate of the party’s establishment and those averse to firebrands. As they mulled and were courted, a parade of hopefuls with low profiles beyond Capitol Hill — such as Rep. Daniel Webster (Fla.), a former state House speaker, and Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (Utah) — made the case in huddles and in the hallways that they are ready to be a fresh face for an unsettled House.

McCarthy, too, called for a “new face” during a news conference, asking for unity behind a leadership slate that is not as closely aligned with Boehner and the old bulls who have retained a grip over the House GOP in recent years even as a younger generation of Republicans has ascended. Who that face could be is unclear, and most ambitious, less-seasoned House Republicans who have considered running for the leadership in the past spent Thursday reacting to the news rather than quickly assembling coalitions.

Boehner, who last month said he would resign the speakership after weeks of facing a near-certain revolt from conservatives frustrated by his handling of legislation and what they see as a lack of aggression in countering President Obama’s agenda, said he will “serve as speaker until the House votes to elect a new speaker.”

It was the soundbite heard ’round Capitol Hill: House Majority Leader and presumptive House speaker nominee Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has dropped out of the race for speaker. The Washington Post’s Elise Viebeck explains the sudden news — and what happens next. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post)

The bench for the House GOP is sparse, emptied in recent years by the same forces that have vexed Boehner and McCarthy. Virginia’s Eric Cantor, then the majority leader and firmly in line to succeed Boehner, was defeated in a 2014 House primary by a conservative challenger, elevating McCarthy but gutting the leadership of the political capital that Cantor had accumulated.

The committee chairmanships, long a grooming area for future leaders and the path Boehner took to the speakership, have been filled in places by youthful members such as Chaffetz, 48. And the leadership slots below Boehner and McCarthy – majority whip and chief deputy whip – are occupied by Steve Scalise (La.) and Patrick McHenry (N.C.), respectively. Both have served in the House for a decade or less and are inexperienced as national spokesmen — inside operatives but far from recognizable voices.

That left Republicans searching Thursday for new names to add to mix. King floated Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a respected former House GOP campaign chairman, as a person who could be a calming presence. Several conservatives suggested House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Tex.), a former leadership member who has strong relationships with the party’s conservative bloc.

Others on the right said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which was wary of McCarthy, would best reflect the political drift and impulses of the House. But he told reporters that he is not interested.

Another House Republican who drew interest was Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who is chairing the House Select Committee delving into the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya. William Kristol, the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said in a Twitter message that Gowdy should be “interim speaker for next year,” days after Gowdy was called to run for the post by conservative groups who have cheered his Benghazi investigation. But as the boomlet began, Gowdy said “no” when asked by reporters whether he would consider running.

Scalise and McHenry, who had been running for lower leadership spots should McCarthy win the speakership, were encouraged to look higher up the chain of command. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), who has been a front-line participant in the latest talks about the future of the GOP, also mulled his options. So did Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the conference chairwoman and the party’s highest-ranking woman, and House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (Ga.), who has harbored dreams of being in the leadership and previously ran unsuccessfully.

Yet none of those members seemed poised Thursday to follow in McCarthy’s footsteps as the front-runner for the gavel. They are all relatively popular with certain circles but few carry the national political heft of Ryan, who has been a vice-presidential nominee, or a McCarthy, who is the current No. 2 in the House.

“My guess is Boehner stays until a replacement has been selected on the floor,” said Rep. Bill Flores (R-Tex.).

Sensing that perhaps no one can ably navigate the terrain — or get the necessary votes, as required by the Constitution, to win the speakership in a floor vote — Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.), the National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, said he would consider running to be interim speaker as the House GOP worked out who could actually lead it in the months ahead.

Tea-party groups weighed in, hoping to exert their own pull on the speaker’s race. Activist Mark Meckler said in a statement that the House GOP must end the “Washington cartel at a time when people are looking to outsiders to challenge the status quo.” Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin said this was a “historic moment” that demands a speaker with deep support with grass-roots conservatives.

McCarthy, in an interview with National Review on Thursday, said whoever follows will have to grapple with a right flank of about 40 members that wants to direct the leadership, rather than being led. “I wouldn’t have enjoyed being speaker this way,” he said.

On who he’d like to step forward, McCarthy said, “I personally want Paul Ryan.” On whether the House can be led, he said, “I don’t know. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom.”

It was that feeling, expressed across the GOP base, which gave candidates like Webster — a backbencher who won just 12 votes in the vote for speaker earlier this year — some optimism as others scrambled to fill the vacuum left by McCarthy. Rep. David Brat (R-Va.), who toppled Cantor in that primary last year, said on MSNBC that he was with Webster. “I went in Daniel Webster,” he said, and remains with him. Other members of the House Freedom Caucus echoed him late Thursday.

The so-called “Moderate” (or, Vichy, as I call them) Republicans, still being led by Cryin’ John Boehner to the bitter end, are in danger of letting their immense egos cost them their jobs, as the 2016 National Election approaches.

On September 29, 2011, Rush Limbaugh made some very pertinent points concerning the difference in political ideology between the Conservative Base and the NE Moderate Republicans’ Club:

This is fascinating. I spoke earlier in the previous busy broadcast hour about Reagan’s campaign for governor in California in 1966. It is instructive because of this battle here between American conservatives and the Republican establishment, and believe me, they’re two different things. Now, George Will says there’s no Republican establishment and there hasn’t been since, what, 1966. But there is. The Republican establishment for all intents and purposes for the sake of our discussion here, is made up of what you would call RINOs.

The Republican establishment is northeastern Republican conservatives. They’re right on the fiscal side of things most of the time, but they don’t want any part of the social issues. They can’t stand it being part of the party platform. They don’t want to talk about it. They have no desire to be part of that discussion. They think it’s going to lose elections, all that kind of stuff, plus they do tend to believe Washington is the center of the universe. Republicans win elections. They’re in charge of the money. They like that. They tend to believe that an energetic, powerful executive wielding financial powers, spending money for the national good with conservative instincts is a good thing. So if government grows under that rubric, then it’s fine.

We, of course, as conservatives, don’t see things that way, and there is the divide. And the Republican establishment is made up of a lot of powerful people with a lot of money, and they want to win. Just like we do. They employ whatever muscle they have to see to it that they do. They want their candidates to be representative of what they want, all of which is understandable. So there’s this battle going on. The added intensity this time around is another point of disagreement. That is the Republican establishment doesn’t really think the country’s threatened. They don’t like Obama. They think Obama’s a disaster, but the country’s not in any danger here of real long-term damage. I mean, it’s just overblown, all this talk about saving the country, it’s not that bad. All we gotta do is get our people in there and put us back on the responsible fiscal track and everything will be fine.

They don’t see the Democrat Party the same way we do. They don’t see the Democrat Party as basically socialist liberal, and they cringe at such talk. And these people never really were enamored with Ronald Reagan. They never really liked him. They just lived on edge every day: What’s this guy going to do that’s going to embarrass us? What mistake is he going to make? What stupid thing is he going to say? They actually had this view. Tip O’Neill was not the only one who thought that Ronald Reagan was an amiable dunce. There were in the Republican establishment who thought that before Reagan ever ran for office and after he won the presidency. And they thought that back in 1966. After all, he was just an actor, introduced GE Theater.

…He was talking about the Goldwater campaign of two years past. This is ’66; the Goldwater campaign was ’64….Reagan said, “We don’t intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals of our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all,” and the traitors he was referring to were the Rhinos of his day who had undermined the Goldwater conservatives during the 1964 campaign. And Reagan was saying: Over my dead body is the Republican Party going to be turned over to those people. We’re only going places if we conservatives run this party, if we take it over and if we are unified.

Just as they underestimated Ronaldus Magnus, I truly believe that the Vichy Republicans haveunderestimated the Party’s Conservative Base.

Reagan Conservatives are the bedrock of this nation. We pay these bozos’ salaries, and get shafted in return.

You know what I want for the 23% (soon to be 40%, if Obama has his way before he leaves office) of my hard-earned money, which I send to our nation’s capital to pay for Obama’s and Congress’ Revenue?

I want Conservative Leadership. I want somebody to stand up on their hind legs and tell Obama the way the cow ate the cabbage. I want someone to actually give a hoot ‘n holler about the average American, not the special interest groups, not the lobbyists, not “the smartest people in the room”…me.

I want an American President and competent American Congresspeople.

And, I want those Congresspeople in the House of Representatives to be lead by a Conservative, courageous Speaker of the House. One who will tell Obama, plainly and simply,

NOT ON MY WATCH.

I want someone to stand up and be a MAN…or a WOMAN.

I am so dadgum tired of mealy-mouth squishes and political niceties and expediences, I could spit. Too many Americans are out of work and doing without, while the Three-Ring Circus performs unabated under the Big Top on Capital Hill.

The American people are tired of cleaning up after the Vichy Republicans and their bosom buddies “across the aisle”.

We need Conservative Leadership in the House AND the Senate.

NOW.

Until He Comes,

KJ

From Reagan to Rubio: The Wussification of the Republican Party

On By kingsjesterIn Politics19 Comments

Cartoon-Cruz-Vs-Establishment-600I started this Blog back in April of 2010 as a way of venting my frustration with what I saw happening in the greatest country on God’s Green Earth.

I could not believe what was going on around me. The American People had elected an incompetent, pompous, didactic, divisive, self-involved, Marxist idiot to the most important position in the world: the Presidency of the United States.

The Federal Government, under the leadership of Barack Hussein Obama, and his partners in crime, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, was headed down the road to full-blown socialism, faster than Rosie O’Donnell heading to Golden Corral.

Gradually, from seemingly out of nowhere, a movement began. It wasn’t a Liberal “Astroturf” movement…it was a groundswell, started by average Americans, who were fed up with being over-taxed and under-represented by the people whom they had elected and sent to Washington to SERVE THEM.

As the movement began to take place, it was clear that this was a CONSERVATIVE movement…and a PATRIOTIC one…as they took the name “TEA Party” which stood for “Taxed Enough Already”. Just as the Colonials, who revolted against the King of England, these Americans were, and still are, fighting against “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”.

I remain proud of these Americans. As a fellow Conservative and TEA Party Supporter, they remind me of the Republican Party of my young adulthood, when, in November of 1980, at the age of 21 and 11 months, I cast my very first vote for the greatest President of my generation, Ronald Wilson Reagan. The TEA Party reminds me of the way Republicans, led by Ronaldus Magnus, were back then: plain-spoken, good-humored, honest-to-a-fault, servants of the people, whom you were just as likely to find at St. Peter’s Orphanage’s Annual Picnic in Memphis, TN, as you were at the New York Metropolitan Opera.

In fact, I and my fiancee sent a wedding invitation to President and Mrs. Reagan, and got back and official congratulations card, signed by them, from the Office of Protocol.

The Obamas think “class” is something they skipped to go “choom”.

But, I digress…

The blemish on Reagan’s record that Liberals from both sides of the aisle, are bring up right now, is his passage of a law granting Amnesty to illegal aliens.

Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 because he strongly believed that it was time to gain control of U.S. borders and to enforce legal hiring at workplaces.

The amnesty of 3 million illegal immigrants that came with it was relatively small, and never would have resulted in 11 million new immigrants in the decades that followed had the rest of the law’s requirements been fulfilled by Congress.

Of course, they weren’t.

According to Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, amnesty was in fact Reagan’s biggest regret, per a story in the Heritage Times, because he, like the people who supported him, believed in the rule of law.

As the halcyon days of the Reagan Administration passed by, and time moved on, the Republican Party slowly, but surely, began to distance themselves from us rubes living out here in America’s Heartland, otherwise known as “Flyover Country”.

And, as they became more isolated from the people they were supposed to be serving, they started losing elections. Sure, Dubya was elected for two terms (Thank God.), but, can you imagine either Al Gore or John Kerry as President? Without throwing up, that is?

With the election of Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm), and with the Democrats controlling both the House and Senate,this nation was taken on a madcap plunge toward socialism faster than Elvis going down the last hill on the Zippin Pippin at the old Mid-South Fairgrounds.

And then, Americans stood up on their hind legs and started the TEA Party Movement.

Obama and the Democrats, and the Status Quo-loving Establishment Republicans, could not believe their eyes. “What was this mess? How dare these sheep break away from the flock!”

While Obama and the Democrats attacked us every which-way they could think us, accusing us of RAAACIIISM, carrying guns to rallies, etc., the “Moderate” Republicans, played it very cagey. They used the TEA Party during the months leading up to the 2010 Mid-terms, to get themselves elected, and win back the House of Representatives, on the promise that they would govern “Conservatively”.

Allow me to pause for a moment and say this: I am not speaking about actual Reagan Conservatives and TEA Party Members like Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and sometimes, Rand Paul. I am speaking of those Vichy Republicans, like John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Marco Rubio, who should just switch parties, and get it over with.

In the two years since the TEA Party propelled them to victory in the Mid-terms, the Establishment Republicans, who rode our coat tails back to the Halls of Power, have increasingly treated us badly, at first, shunning Conservatives like we were red-headed step-children, and now, insulting and degrading us like we are lepers…or their enemy.

And now, with Obama failing miserably, tanking in every single Popularity Poll, making about as much sense as a punch-drunk boxer, the Republicans appear ready to commit mass seppuku (hari kari), as I wrote yesterday, “snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory”  by pushing for Amnesty for illegal aliens, in order to supply their Big Money Donors, in the US Chamber of Commerce, with cheap labor.

In fact, that’s not the only issue that the Vichy Republicans are wussing out on…and it has Senator Ted Cruz worried, as he told Breitbart.com:

Cruz questioned how establishment Republicans unilaterally caving to Democrats on everything from the farm bill to the budget to the debt ceiling and more could think amnesty is a good idea at this time.

“Right now, Republican leadership in both chambers is aggressively urging members to stand down on virtually every front: on the continuing resolution, on the budget, on the farm bill, on the debt ceiling,” Cruz said in a statement provided exclusively to Breitbart News on Thursday.

He continued:

They may or may not be right, but their argument is that we should focus exclusively on Obamacare and on jobs. In that context, why on earth would the House dive into immigration right now? It makes no sense, unless you’re Harry Reid. Republicans are poised for an historic election this fall–a conservative tidal wave much like 2010. The biggest thing we could do to mess that up would be if the House passed an amnesty bill–or any bill perceived as an amnesty bill–that demoralized voters going into November. Rather than responding to the big-money lobbying on K Street, we need to make sure working-class Americans show up by the millions to reject Obamacare and vote out the Democrats. Amnesty will ensure they stay home.

Cruz added that granting amnesty now–while wrong in his opinion at any time–would ensure Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remains in his position in after the 2014 elections.

“Amnesty is wrong in any circumstance, and if we are going to fix our broken immigration system–and we should–it makes much more sense to do so next year, so that we are negotiating a responsible solution with a Republican Senate majority rather than with Chuck Schumer,” Cruz said. “Anyone pushing an amnesty bill right now should go ahead and put a ‘Harry Reid for Majority Leader’ bumper sticker on their car, because that will be the likely effect if Republicans refuse to listen to the American people and foolishly change the subject from Obamacare to amnesty.”

I wish we had a Senate full of Ted Cruzs and Mike Lees.

Ronald Reagan once quipped,

The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.

Evidently, that applies to Vichy Republicans, as well.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Reaction to the House Budget Bill: Sarah…Plain [Spoken] and [Standing] Tall

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

pailinbiggulp2Yesterday afternoon, the Vichy Republican-led House of Representatives passed the “Bi-partisan” Budget Proposal, co-authored by Democrat Patti Murray and Former Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate, Paul Ryan.

By passing the bill the House Republicans turned their backs on the Conservative Base, which gave them control of the House through their votes during the Political Massacre known as Mid-Term Elections of 2010.

This current wave of attacks by Progressives, in both political partie,s is not some sort of new phenomena. They have been attempting to stifle Conservatism in American for quite some time now.

The following excerpt is taken from Ronald Reagan Speech titled “A Time For Choosing”.

This speech was given as a stump speech, at speaking engagements, and on a memorable night in 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign.

Almost 50 years later, The Great Communicators’ words ring as true now, as when they were first spoken.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Reagan gave Progressive Politicians Hissy Fits with his Optimistic Conservatism and his ability to deliver powerful speeches in a way that average Americans could clearly understand and relate to.

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin remains popular in the Heartland of America and unpopular in the Northeast Corridor and on the Left Coast, for a that very same  reason:  She says out loud what average Americans are thinking.

For example, here is an article she has written for breitbart.com…

No one can argue with the fact that Paul Ryan’s compromise budget bill raises taxes and increases spending. Show me one Republican who got elected on that platform. Spare America the Orwellian word games. If the government is taking money out of your pocket to fund its growing Big Brother operations, it’s a tax. Whether money is taken from you via your phone bill, your airline ticket, or your income, it’s a tax. If politicians can’t be honest about this, it’s time to go home.

The TEA Party’s very acronym stands for “Taxed Enough Already.” We sent these politicians to Congress in an historic landslide election in 2010 with a mandate to stop the runaway spending train bankrupting our nation, not to wave to it from the station or – heaven forbid – increase its speed. And yet, here we are still pretending that there are no real world consequences to running up near trillion dollar deficits year after year with no end in sight.

So, where does this leave us? We can sit back and accept the increased spending “Compromised Plan” with increases in taxes and spending, or we can charge ahead to at least preserve the very modest Sequester cuts American workers already fought for. If we go with the first option, we simply kick the can down the road yet again and wait for the inevitable real world consequences of bankruptcy (see Detroit for an example of what’s in store). Or we can go with the second option and probably get clobbered by the media (so what’s new?!).

The Political Establishment will no doubt tell us that a budget battle will distract us from the fight against Obamacare. But that excuse is just the latest variation in the Establishment’s old canard that they’re keeping their powder dry for the next big battle which never seems to materialize because they’re always too busy waving the white flag and following the path of least resistance until election day.

Enough is enough!

Here’s the deal, folks. The media will clobber us no matter what. We do not want more taxes. We want Congress to rein in spending and live within its means. (What’s so radical about that?!) Americans have gotten quite an education recently in wasteful government spending as we’ve all seen how the federal government can blow a billion dollars on a website that doesn’t work.

Do these members of Congress really think they can justify every tax dollar they spend and still demand more from hard working Americans by increasing our taxes?

2014 is just around the corner. If any member of Congress thinks raising taxes and increasing wasteful spending is a winning strategy to run on, then by all means they should vote for the Ryan budget. We’ll be watching.

Just as Reagan used the Bully Pulpit of the Presidency to bypass the Progressive Politicians and Main Stream Media of his time, and talked directly to the American People, so does Sarah Palin use today’s New Media very effectively.

The Arctic Fox is refreshing and Honest…and, she drives Progressives like John Boehner, Harry Reid, and President Barack Hussein Obama. Plus, she is not a private citizen, unencumbered by the Political Straight Jacket that her own partner placed upn her in the 2008 Elections.

Don’t like her? Too bad.

This is Sarah…Plain [spoken] and [standing] Tall.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Shutdown: Still…”A Time for Choosing”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

reaganI really did not know what to write about today. Like the rest of you, I am getting sick and tired of the self-serving politicians, up in the Halls of Power, acting like a bunch of spoiled children choosing sides for a kickball team.

Our petulant President, while remaining in the middle of a now 13-day-long Temper Tantrum, wants everything his way, refusing to negotiate, because those eeeevil Republicans won’t bow down and kiss his Imperial Hindquarters, as the Vichy “Moderates” among them usually do.

Give them a couple of days. Paul Ryan is working on it, even now.

Anyway, my mind traveled back, as it often does, to a seminal moment in our nation’s history, which might give us guidance in a situation like this.

I found an appropriate message in the words of the greatest President in our Generation, Ronald Wilson Reagan.,delivered on a legendary night in 1964, as he was out delivering stump speeches for the Republican Presidential Campaign of Barry Goldwater. The title of the speech is “A Time For Choosing”, and The Gipper’s words ring as true today, as they ever have…

It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”

This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

…Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Today, as we watch our nation’s Veterans, who sacrificed for this great nation, visit the memorials built in their honor, closed right now by the order of a Petulant  President, in the middle of a Temper Tantrum, think about the words of The Great Communicator, who also said, 

Man is not free unless government is limited.

Call your Republican Representatives and tell them, in the words Scotsman William Wallace, to “Hold that Line!” against this present-day tyranny which America is suffering under.

Remind them that our Freedom and their jobs depend on it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The VP Debate: Paul Ryan Vs. Joe Biden AND Martha Raddatz

On By kingsjesterIn Politics10 Comments

As I write this Blog, the Vice-Presidential debate is wrapping up.

I admire the stew out of Paul Ryan.

He just spent 90 minutes debating both the Vice-President of the United States and the Moderator, ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who has known Barack Hussein Obama since her ex-husband, the current Chairman of the FCC, and young Scooter were classmates at Harvard Law School.

The scales were tipped from the get-go. Crazy Uncle Joe kept interrupting Congressman Ryan, in an obvious strategy to a) torque him off and get him off his game plan, and b) shout him down so that his arguments could not be heard.

The so-called Moderator, Ms. Raddatz, faithfully did her duty…to the Democratic Party. Every time Ryan would speak, she would interrupt him as well, asking infinitely more questions of him than she did of Jar Jar Biden.

While Ryan kept his cool, as well as his professionalism, Biden appeared to be badly in need of some Prozac, and at times during the debate came across as maniacally desperate.

Several noted Liberals were on Twitter during the debate posting disparaging remarks concerning Crazy Uncle Joe’s smirking and condescending attitude.

Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway: “Joe Biden’s laughing through talking about Iran sanctions?”

TIME’s Michael Scherer: “Not sure debate cameras have been light tested for Biden’s teeth. Best to watch with sunglasses.”

Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein: “Biden’s strategy seems to be to laugh at Ryan constantly. Will it work to infantalize Ryan, or backfire like Gore sighing?”

NBC’s David Gregory: “Biden’s smile is out of control.”

BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith: “So did Biden practice laughing at Ryan???”

ABC’s Rick Klein: “Biden on verge of breaking down in laughter when Ryan talks.”

Former Eric Cantor staffer Brad Dayspring: “Joe Biden needs to realize this isn’t a Senate Foreign Relations Hearing. His laughter and condescending attitude is a disaster.”

Radio host Neal Boortz: “Looking like Biden’s gameplan is to laugh his way through this.”

Townhall.com’s Guy Benson: “Will Biden laugh his ass off at the terrible economy, too?”

MSNBC’s S.E. Cupp: “Biden needs to laugh a little less through the Libya, Middle East, nuclear Iran segment.”

Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza: “Ok. I have decided. I find the Biden smile slightly unsettling.”

PBS’ Jeff Greenfield: “Biden has always had a smile that at times is really, really inappropriate.”

Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard: “Can’t tell yet if Biden’s smirking, laughs, eye-rolling, head shaking, works for him or not against the oh-so-young looking eager Ryan.”

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer: “Biden is at risk of having his laugh come across like Gore’s sighs. He should knock it off.”

The New York Times’ Ashley Parker: “Biden’s grin is Chesire Cat caliber.”

Republican strategist Ron Bonjean: “Biden laughing does not come off with the intended effect. It is actually hurting him. Looks very condescending.”

Movie critic Roger Ebert: “Joe! Stop smiling and laughing!”

Washington Times’ Emily Miller: “Biden laughing when he disagrees with Ryan is so annoying. Like a child in time out.”

Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin: “Biden’s laughing is losing the debate- obnoxious”

Comedy Central’s Indecision: “If this keeps up much longer, Joe Biden’s going to sprain his laugh muscles.”

And while Congressman Ryan was too much of a gentleman to do so, I wish he would have asked Ms. Raddatz last night, if she was a supposed to be a Broadcast Journalist or a Democratic Party Activist?

Foxnews.com summarizes the debate for us:

Vice President Biden and Paul Ryan came ready to rumble. And it showed.

The dueling running mates turned the lone vice presidential debate into an uncharacteristically feisty affair Thursday night, scrapping over everything from the economy to Libya to taxes.

The candidates interrupted each other. They talked over each other. Biden chuckled through many of Ryan’s responses. Ryan claimed his opponent was simply under “duress.”

The 90-minute session was a turnaround from last week’s opening presidential debate, a policy-focused bout in which President Obama was panned for his lackluster performance. On stage Thursday night in Kentucky, both vice presidential contenders aggressively challenged each other and came armed with a stack of talking points.

Ryan accused Obama of “projecting weakness” with his foreign policy, particularly in his response to the terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. At home, he accused the administration of presiding over a shoddy recovery.

“This is not what a real recovery looks like,” he said.

Biden went after the Romney/Ryan ticket with a directness that Obama did not a week ago in Denver. Notably, he hammered Romney over his secretly videotaped comment in which he said he doesn’t have to worry about the “47 percent” of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes.

“These people are my mom and dad, the people I grew up with, my neighbors,” Biden said, adding he’s “had it up to here” with those kinds of comments.

Ryan shot back, in reference to Biden’s tendency to make gaffes: “As the vice president very well knows … sometimes the words don’t come out of your mouth the right way.”

“But I always say what I mean,” Biden responded. “And so does Romney.”

Ryan opened the vice presidential debate with tough criticism of the Obama administration over its handling of the Libya terror attack.

“What we are watching on our TV screens is the unraveling of the Obama foreign policy,” Ryan said.

With the moderator, ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, opening the debate with a question about the Libya strike, which happened a month ago Thursday, Ryan criticized the administration for waiting more than a week after the strike to call it a coordinated terror attack.

“This is becoming more troubling by the day. They first blamed the YouTube video. Now they’re trying to blame the Romney/Ryan ticket for making this an issue,” he said. Ryan was referring to a claim by an Obama aide earlier Thursday that the only reason the attack had entered the political debate was because of Romney’s criticism – a claim Romney rejected.

Biden was quick to retort: “With all due respect, that’s just a bunch of malarkey,” he said, on the debate stage in Kentucky.

“This talk about this weakness, I don’t understand what my friend’s talking about,” he said.

Biden also criticized Romney for making a “political statement”on the night of the attack, a reference to Romney’s criticism of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo’s early response to protests there.

The face-off Thursday night was taking on outsized importance for a vice presidential debate.

After Obama’s debate performance last week, the pressure was on Biden to recapture the momentum – while equally on Ryan to prevent the Obama ticket from blunting Romney’s surge.

In a matter of days, Romney has picked up steam in both battleground and national polls. The latest Fox News national poll of likely voters showed Romney edging Obama, 46 percent to 45 percent.

Other polls show Romney with more of a lead.

Judging from what I saw and heard last night, I don’t think that last night’s cranky old man performance by Crazy Uncle Joe will make a bit of difference.

One last thought:

The spin from the Democrats immediately after the debate was that Joe is “A Happy Warrior”.  So is aged Professional Wrestler “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan. But, I don’t want him to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency, either.

From Ryan to Ridiculous

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Last night, in Tampa, Florida, at the Republican National Convention, Vice-President Paul Ryan strode to the podium and delivered a solid speech.

Here are some excepts from it, courtesy of weeklystandard.com:

I accept the calling of my generation to give our children the America that was given to us, with opportunity for the young and security for the old – and I know that we are ready. Our nominee is sure ready. His whole life has prepared him for this moment – to meet serious challenges in a serious way, without excuses and idle words. After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor Mitt Romney. …

Obamacare comes to more than two thousand pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees, and fines that have no place in a free country. The president has declared that the debate over government-controlled health care is over. That will come as news to the millions of Americans who will elect Mitt Romney so we can repeal Obamacare. …

We have a plan for a stronger middle class, with the goal of generating 12 million new jobs over the next four years. …

My Dad used to say to me: ‘Son. You have a choice: You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution.’ The present administration has made its choices. And Mitt Romney and I have made ours: Before the math and the momentum overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation’s economic problems. And I’m going to level with you: We don’t have that much time. But if we are serious, and smart, and we lead, we can do this. …

That is how a leader speaks, ladies and gentlemen.

As opposed our present CIC, as reported at Gateway Pundit, by Jim Hoft:

On August 6, 2011, 30 US service members were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter they were being transported in crashed in Wardak province, Afghanistan. It was the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. 17 members of the elite Navy SEALs were killed in the crash.

Yesterday, Karen and Billy Vaughn, parents of Aaron Carson Vaughn, spoke at the Defending the Defenders forum sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots outside the RNC Convention in Tampa. Karen brought a copy of the form letter they were sent following their son’s death.

It’s a form letter.

It was signed by an electric pen.

That’s not all.

Karen Vaughn reached out to the parents of the other SEALs killed in that crash.

Their letters were all the same.

Form letters – signed by an electric pen.

…After the deadliest single loss of US forces in Afghanistan, Barack Obama sent out form letters to the parents.

Pitiful.

However, just so you won’t think that I’m one -sided,  I am pleased to announce that an anonymous source has sent me an copy of the advance schedule for the Democratic National Convention.

Read this and you might become verklept (Yiddish for being overcome by emotion).

2012 Democratic Convention Schedule – Charlotte, NC

4:00 PM – Opening Flag Burning Ceremony – sponsored by CNN

4:05 PM – Singing of “God Damn America” led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright

4:10 PM – Pledge of Allegiance to Obama – led by Whoopie Goldberg

4:15 PM – Tribute to George Soros for his help in creating and financing the Democratic Platform – Nancy Pelosi

4:30 PM – Reading of the Democratic Platform – Nancy Pelosi XXXX Canceled. Will be passed without reading.

4:30 PM – Tribute to the Occupy Wall Street movement for all that they have accomplished to unify the country, improve employment, and boost the economy. – Harry Reid

4:45 PM – Jobs seminar “How to have a successful career without having a job.” – Al Sharpton / Jesse Jackson

5:00 PM – Travel Seminar; “Great Vacations I’ve Taken on the Taxpayer’s Dime” – Michelle Obama.

5:30 PM – “Family Values” Seminar – Eliot Spitzer (via Satellite)

5:35 PM – Real Estate Bargains Seminar – Tony Rezko

6:00 PM – Home Mortgage Seminar – Barney Frank

6:10 PM – Pledge of Allegiance to Obama – led by George Clooney

6:15 PM – Airing of Grievances by the Clintons

6:30 pm – Kinder, Gentler Bombing Techniques – Bill Ayers

6:45 PM – Paying Your Fair Share – Timothy Geitner

7:00 PM – Free Gov. Blagovich rally

7:15 PM – Tribute Film to Brave Freedom Fighters incarcerated at GITMO – Michael Moore

7:30 PM – Dramatized film re-enactment of Obama’s single handed capture of Osama Bin Laden – Michael Moore

7:45 PM – Personal Finance Seminar – Charlie Rangle

7:50 PM – Commitment to US border security – Atty Gen Holder

8:10 PM – Pledge of Allegiance to Obama – led by David Letterman

8:15 PM – Media Seminar “Bias in Media – How we can make it work for you” – sponsored by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times

9:00 PM – Denunciation of Bitter Gun Owners and Bible readers – Dem Natl Cmte Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

9:15 PM – Energy Plan Symposium / Tire Gauge Demonstration / Profiting with Green Investments – Al Gore

10:00 PM – Ceremonial Waving of White Flag for IRAQ , & Afghanistan

10:10 PM – Pledge of Allegiance to Obama – led by Barbra Streisand

10:15 PM – Obama Accepts Oscar, Tony and Latin Grammy Awards

10:20 PM – Obama accepts Congressional Medal of Honor for Bin Laden capture

10:25 PM – Obama accepts Greenpeace Hero Medal for instant cleanup of Gulf oil spill, and blocking of Keystone Pipeline

10:30 PM – Official Nomination of Obama by Bill Maher and Chris “He sends a thrill up my leg” Matthews

10:45 PM – *** Break for installation of additional teleprompters ***

11:00 PM – Obama Accepts Nomination as Lord and Savior

11:45 PM – Feeding of the Delegates with 5 Loaves and 2 Fish – Obama Presiding

12:00 AM – Celestial Choirs Sing (Food stamps distributed to all delegates as they leave.)

1:00 AM – Convention Hall cleared and cleaned

3:00 AM – Biden Delivers Acceptance Speech

Gotcha.

 

Ryan Re-energizes Republican Base

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential pick of the presumed Republican Nominee for President, Mitt Romney, sure does have everyone’s attention, including that of Niall Feguson.

Who’s he? well…

Per his website:

Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.

Here is an excerpt of a 4-page piece  he has written for Newsweek, appearing on thedailybeast.com:

I first met Paul Ryan in April 2010. I had been invited to a dinner in Washington where the U.S. fiscal crisis was going to be the topic of discussion. So crucial did this subject seem to me that I expected the dinner to happen in one of the city’s biggest hotel ballrooms. It was actually held in the host’s home. Three congressmen showed up—a sign of how successful the president’s fiscal version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (about the debt) had been. Ryan blew me away. I have wanted to see him in the White House ever since.

It remains to be seen if the American public is ready to embrace the radical overhaul of the nation’s finances that Ryan proposes. The public mood is deeply ambivalent. The president’s approval rating is down to 49 percent. The Gallup Economic Confidence Index is at minus 28 (down from minus 13 in May). But Obama is still narrowly ahead of Romney in the polls as far as the popular vote is concerned (50.8 to 48.2) and comfortably ahead in the Electoral College. The pollsters say that Paul Ryan’s nomination is not a game changer; indeed, he is a high-risk choice for Romney because so many people feel nervous about the reforms Ryan proposes.

But one thing is clear. Ryan psychs Obama out. This has been apparent ever since the White House went on the offensive against Ryan in the spring of last year. And the reason he psychs him out is that, unlike Obama, Ryan has a plan—as opposed to a narrative—for this country.

Mitt Romney is not the best candidate for the presidency I can imagine. But he was clearly the best of the Republican contenders for the nomination. He brings to the presidency precisely the kind of experience—both in the business world and in executive office—that Barack Obama manifestly lacked four years ago. (If only Obama had worked at Bain Capital for a few years, instead of as a community organizer in Chicago, he might understand exactly why the private sector is not “doing fine” right now.) And by picking Ryan as his running mate, Romney has given the first real sign that—unlike Obama—he is a courageous leader who will not duck the challenges America faces.

The voters now face a stark choice. They can let Barack Obama’s rambling, solipsistic narrative continue until they find themselves living in some American version of Europe, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt—and real geopolitical decline.

Or they can opt for real change: the kind of change that will end four years of economic underperformance, stop the terrifying accumulation of debt, and reestablish a secure fiscal foundation for American national security.

I’ve said it before: it’s a choice between les États Unis and the Republic of the Battle Hymn.

I was a good loser four years ago. But this year, fired up by the rise of Ryan, I want badly to win.

So do us commoners, Niall.

I like what I’m seeing out of Ryan, so far. He’s definitely got Obama nervous, as yahoo.com reports:

Romney’s choice of Ryan as his running mate has put a spotlight on the Wisconsin congressman’s best-known achievement – a budget plan that would slash Medicare’s projected costs by converting it to a program that provides limited subsidies to buy coverage.

But on the campaign trail, Ryan has moved away from his plan to emphasize less contentious proposals by Romney.

Talk of shrinking the health program for the elderly could lose votes in the November 6 election in the hotly contested state of Florida, home to the highest concentration of retirees in the country.

“Their plan would put Medicare on track to be ended as we know it,” President Barack Obama said to a crowd of about 2,300 at a campaign event on Saturday in Windham, New Hampshire.

“You’d think they’d avoid talking about Medicare given the fact that both of them have proposed to voucherize the Medicare system. I guess they figure the best defense is to try to go on offense,” Obama said.

Polls show Romney and Obama running neck-and-neck in Florida, where the cliffhanger 2000 presidential election was decided.

Republicans accuse Obama of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to pay for the healthcare overhaul law that the Democratic president signed in 2010.

But Ryan’s plan also would cut that money from Medicare, even as he proposes repealing the broader healthcare law. Romney says he would keep those funds for Medicare.

Ryan talked on Saturday about his grandmother who had Alzheimer’s disease and moved in with him and his mother when he was in high school.

“Medicare was there for our family, for my grandma when we needed it then. And Medicare is there for my mom, when she needs it now. And we have to keep that guarantee,” he said.

“But in order to make sure that we can guarantee that promise for my mom’s generation, for those baby boomers who are retiring every day, we must reform it for my generation.”

Medicare benefits nearly 50 million elderly and disabled Americans, but its financing will be squeezed by the growing numbers of retirees.

Concerns about the program’s future have become the top healthcare issue in the 2012 election, surpassing worries about Obama’s controversial healthcare law, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found earlier this week.

Joseph Bulla, 62, a Romney supporter at The Villages, said he liked Ryan’s voucher plan for Medicare. “It will give us a chance to choose what we want instead of being dictated to,” he said.

With Obama’s VP Joe Biden, sent home to Delaware to keep him from destroying Obama’s re-election bid by spewing forth more gaffes over the weekend, the nation is wondering what ol’ Scooter is going to do.

He says that he’s going to keep crazy Uncle Joe. But then again, Michael Corleone reassured Fredo, too.

If he doesn’t dump him, the Vice-presidential Debate will be the biggest massacre America has witnessed, since Custer said,

Hey! would you look at all of those Indians!

Ryan Vs. Harris-Perry…Freedom Vs. Spreading the Wealth Around

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

This past weekend, Rep. Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential pick of the presumptive Republican Nominee, Mitt Romney, talked abut the idea of America, and where our rights come from.

Realclearpolitics.com has the quote:

“We look at one another’s success with pride, not resentment, because we know that as more Americans work hard, take risks, succeed, more people will prosper, more communities will benefit. And individual lives will be improved,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said today at the Romney campaign event announcing him as the VP.

“America, America is just more than a place, though. America is an idea. It’s the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not from government. That’s right. That’s who we are, that’s how we built this country. That’s who we are. That’s what made us great. That’s what made us great. We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcomes,” Ryan said.

Of course, Liberal heads exploded. Especially, the one belonging to the weekend host on the seldom-watched, Obama boot-licking cable news channel, known as MSNBC.

Realclearpolitics.com has this quote, also:

“The thing I really have against him is actually how he and Gov. Romney have misused the Declaration of Independence,” MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry said on Saturday in reaction to the the Paul Ryan decision. “I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness. When they say ‘God and nature give us our rights, not government,’ that is a lovely thing to say as a wealthy white man.”

So, who is this “little ray of sunshine and tolerance”?

Per thenation.com:

Melissa Harris-Perry is professor of political science at Tulane University, where she is founding director of the Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South. She is author of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. She is also a contributor to MSNBC.

Back on Independence Day, the birthday of this blessed land, this “contributor” to the seldom-watched MSNBC, said:

“It’s ours, all of it,” she said. “The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

“Independence Day is more aspirational than actual,” she began her monologue. “We have longed defined the American Dream with commodities, a home of ones own, better education for the kids, family vacation and a car to the vacation in. And if we measure the dream by acquisitions, we’re in trouble. National unemployment remains above 8 percent. Wages have dropped, and the median net worth of American families plummeted by almost 40 percent.”

Harris-Perry noted that “financial security is important, but it’s only an outward manifestation of the American Dream. Freedom itself is both more elusive and more complicated.” She explained that America’s founding wasn’t about profits and loss but that “our founding is an unlikely narrative of young men, so inspired by an age of ideas that they threw off the yoke of colonialism and founded a free nation — men who were embarrassingly imperfect.”

The imperfections she listed: “The land on which they formed this Union was stolen; the hands with which they built this nation were enslaved; the women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class.”

“But all of this is our story,” she continued. “Each of us benefits from the residuals of oppression and each of us is harmed by the realities of inequality. This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we’ve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it’s ours, all of it: The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”

She continued on to explain that her favorite story for this Fourth of July is one of people who are “not technically free.” She described a group of 27 inmates who recently completed their GEDs at the jail on Rikers Island. “Despite being incarcerated, they hold fast to the optimistic belief that education, hard work and second chances are still the stuff of America. And that they have a right to take part in the dream.”

“So on the Fourth of July,” Harris-Perry concluded, “I’m going to think of the Rikers Island graduates, and I’m going to wave a flag without hesitation — not because I’ve forgotten my nation’s many wrongs, but because I remember them. And I am nonetheless proud of my country, not for its perfection, because the alternative is too grim, the alternative is to give up on the dream of the nation founded in the belief, if not yet the practice that all are created, all deserve freedom, and all have the right to pursue happiness. Now, that is a dream worth celebrating — with fireworks.”

Karl Marx, the Father of Communism said,

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.

And, he also said

In a higher phase of communist society… only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

After watching and hearing Ms. (Dr.) Harris-Perry, both quotes seemed strangely appropriate.

Campaign 2012: It was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

When Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) received the Presidential Candidacy from his party in 2008, they had to change the venue, to one befitting The Lightbringer…and, in order to fit his ego.

The London Daily Mail reported at the time:

Finally nominated as the first black candidate for the U.S. presidency, he moved the Democratic Party Convention from the conference hall to an 80,000-seater football stadium for his landmark address.

His challenge was to turn his trademark soaring rhetoric into simple ideas to improve the lives of hard-pressed American families. But the Greek pillars of his backdrop prompted ridicule before he stood up to speak early today.

Well…ol’ Scooter’s drawing a few thousand less than that nowadays…

“At Obama fundraiser in Chicago. Admission only $51, but room is half full,” New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor wrote on Twitter.

The Romney campaign seized on Kantor’s estimate, as spokesman Ryan Williams tweeted, “Thrill is gone.” The Drudge Report also piled on, linking to Kantor’s tweet, which has been reposted by a few hundred others. (Kantor quickly followed up with additional tweets noting that only some tickets to the event cost $51 and that the campaign said the event was sold out.)

But the crowd for the afternoon fundraiser at the Bridgeport Art Center totaled 1,000, an Obama campaign official said – more than the 850-person estimate the campaign offered earlier in the weekend. Tickets for the Gen44 fundraiser, targeted at younger supporters, started at $51, but many were more expensive.

And, to this reporter and several others in the White House press pool, the room seemed plenty full. There was empty space at the back of the large warehouse space during and immediately after the president’s remarks, but the crowd was densely packed to get close to the stage at the front of the room where Obama spoke.

Meanwhile, the new Republican ticket fared a lot better:

The largest crowd of the campaign so far for a Mitt Romney event welcomed home favorite son Rep. Paul Ryan at a massive rally here in the congressman’s district Sunday night, pushing the GOP’s vice presidential nominee to tears as he took the stage, setting off cheers with two simple words:

“Hi mom.”

With that, voice cracking, Ryan showed his Wisconsin credentials to a crowd the Romney campaign hopes will be emblematic of the charismatic congressman’s support in the Badger state, a reliably Democratic enclave the Republican candidate hopes to turn red this fall.

“My veins run with cheese, bratwurst, a little Spotted Cow, Leinie’s, and some Miller,” Ryan said, mentioning two well-known local beers. “I was raised on the Packers, Badgers, Bucks and Brewers. I like to hunt here, I like to fish here, I like to snowmobile here. I even think ice fishing is interesting.”

“I’m a Wisconsinite through and through,” Ryan said to cheers from a crowd which contained many members of Ryan’s extended family, and which the campaign estimated to be more than ten thousand strong, likely the largest turnout ever for a Romney event.

The energy generated by Ryan seemed to inspire the man at the top of ticket, who took on a heckler midway through his own remarks, then turned the moment into an indictment of President Obama’s campaign, who’s tactics have riled Romney in recent weeks.

Obama gives Ryan a double-edged welcome to the race

“You see young man, this group here is respectful of other people’s rights to be heard,” Romney said as the heckler was removed. “And you ought to find yourself a different place to be disruptive, because here we believe in listening to people with dignity and respect.”

“There’s no question but if you follow the campaign of Barack Obama, he’s going to do everything in his power to make this the lowest, meanest negative campaign in history. We’re not going to let that happen,” Romney continued. “This is going to be a campaign about ideas about the future of America. This is a campaign about greatness, about America’s future for your children, for the world. Mr. President take you campaign out of the gutter, let’s talk about the real issues that America faces.”

Romney and Ryan were introduced by two other leading figures in the Republican party nationally, both born and raised here in Wisconsin: RNC Chairman Reince Preibus and Governor Scott Walker, who recently survived a recall election and has become a rallying point for Republicans nationwide.

“Isn’t it great to have a cheesehead on the ballot?” Walker asked the crowd.

On Monday, Ryan will campaign solo for the GOP ticket for the first time, attending the state fair in Iowa, setting up something of a showdown in the Hawkeye state, with President Obama hitting the stump in Western Iowa then as well.

I echo the well-wishes of Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin who wrote on her Facebook Page:

Congratulations to Mitt Romney on his choice of Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. President Obama has declared that this election is about “two fundamentally different visions” for America. Goodness, he’s got that right. Our country cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama’s fundamentally flawed vision. We must now look to this new team, the Romney/Ryan ticket, to provide an alternate vision of an America that is fiscally responsible, strong, and prosperous – an America that understands and is proud of her exceptional place in the world and will respect those who fight to secure that exceptionalism, which includes keeping our promises to our veterans.

I really like what I’ve seen from this new team this past weekend.

Could we be approaching “Morning in America” again?

Paul Ryan…the Much-Needed Spark

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

I remember the first time I really paid attention to Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential pick of the presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee, Mitt Romney.

It was the 2010 Healthcare Summit, when he looked President Barack Hussein Obama in the eye and said this:

Look, we agree on the problem here. And the problem is health inflation is driving us off of a fiscal cliff.

Mr. President, you said health care reform is budget reform. You’re right. We agree with that. Medicare, right now, has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That’s $38 trillion in empty promises to my parents’ generation, our generation, our kids’ generation. Medicaid’s growing at 21 percent each year. It’s suffocating states’ budgets. It’s adding trillions in obligations that we have no means to pay for it.

Now, you’re right to frame the debate on cost and health inflation. And in September, when you spoke to us in the well of the House, you basically said — and I totally agree with this — I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits either now or in the future.

Since the Congressional Budget Office can’t score your bill, because it doesn’t have sufficient detail, but it tracks very similar to the Senate bill, I want to unpack the Senate score a little bit.

And if you take a look at the CBO analysis, analysis from your chief actuary, I think it’s very revealing. This bill does not control costs. This bill does not reduce deficits. Instead, this bill adds a new health care entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have.

Now, let me go through why I say that. The majority leader said the bill scores as reducing the deficit $131 billion over the next 10 years. First, a little bit about CBO. I work with them every single day — very good people, great professionals. They do their jobs well. But their job is to score what is placed in front of them. And what has been placed in front of them is a bill that is full of gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors. Now, what do I mean when I say that?

Well, first off, the bill has 10 years of tax increases, about half a trillion dollars, with 10 years of Medicare cuts, about half a trillion dollars, to pay for six years of spending.

Now, what’s the true 10-year cost of this bill in 10 years? That’s $2.3 trillion.

It does couple of other things. It takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that’s really reserved for Social Security. So either we’re double-counting them or we don’t intend on paying those Social Security benefits.

It takes $72 billion and claims money from the CLASS Act. That’s the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets.

The Senate Budget Committee chairman said that this is a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.

Now, when you take a look at the Medicare cuts, what this bill essentially does — it treats Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to shore up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.

Now, when you take a look at what this does, is, according to the chief actuary of Medicare, he’s saying as much as 20 percent of Medicare’s providers will either go out of business or will have to stop seeing Medicare beneficiaries. Millions of seniors who are on — who have chosen Medicare Advantage will lose the coverage that they now enjoy.

You can’t say that you’re using this money to either extend Medicare solvency and also offset the cost of this new program. That’s double counting.

And so when you take a look at all of this; when you strip out the double-counting and what I would call these gimmicks, the full 10- year cost of the bill has a $460 billion deficit. The second 10-year cost of this bill has a $1.4 trillion deficit.

And I think, probably, the most cynical gimmick in this bill is something that we all probably agree on. We don’t think we should cut doctors 21 percent next year. We’ve stopped those cuts from occurring every year for the last seven years.

We all call this, here in Washington, the doc fix. Well, the doc fix, according to your numbers, costs $371 billion. It was in the first iteration of all of these bills, but because it was a big price tag and it made the score look bad, made it look like a deficit, that bill was — that provision was taken out, and it’s been going on in stand-alone legislation. But ignoring these costs does not remove them from the backs of taxpayers. Hiding spending does not reduce spending. And so when you take a look at all of this, it just doesn’t add up.

And so let’s just — I’ll finish with the cost curve. Are we bending the cost curve down or are we bending the cost curve up?

Well, if you look at your own chief actuary at Medicare, we’re bending it up. He’s claiming that we’re going up $222 billion, adding more to the unsustainable fiscal situation we have.

And so, when you take a look at this, it’s really deeper than the deficits or the budget gimmicks or the actuarial analysis. There really is a difference between us.

And we’ve been talking about how much we agree on different issues, but there really is a difference between us. And it’s basically this. We don’t think the government should be in control of all of this. We want people to be in control. And that, at the end of the day, is the big difference.

Now, we’ve offered lots of ideas all last year, all this year. Because we agree the status quo is unsustainable. It’s got to get fixed. It’s bankrupting families. It’s bankrupting our government. It’s hurting families with pre-existing conditions. We all want to fix this

But we don’t think that this is the answer to the solution. And all of the analysis we get proves that point.

Now, I’ll just simply say this. And I respectfully disagree with the vice president about what the American people are or are not saying or whether we’re qualified to speak on their behalf. So…

(LAUGHTER)

… we are all representatives of the American people. We all do town hall meetings. We all talk to our constituents. And I’ve got to tell you, the American people are engaged. And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you’re not listening to them.

So what we simply want to do is start over, work on a clean- sheeted paper, move through these issues, step by step, and fix them, and bring down health care costs and not raise them. And that’s basically the point.

That bravura performance aside, why did Romney pick Ryan?

Robert Costa writes in nationalreview.com that:

“We’re very much inclined in the same direction,” Romney told NRO in March. “We [have spoken] together about my plans on Medicare, for instance, and ultimately the Wyden-Ryan bill is very similar, if not identical, to what I proposed some time ago. We all have ideas about what should be done with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security — and we’re on the same page.”

According to Romney insiders, Romney deeply appreciated Ryan’s willingness to privately share his critique of the campaign during the heated Republican primary, where Romney often struggled to make his case. As he watched from afar, long before he endorsed, Ryan drafted a series of detailed strategy and policy advisories, and discussed them with Romney over the phone. For Romney, those corporate-style memos made a lasting impression — and catapulted Ryan into Romney’s circle, where he has remained since.

Okay. the team is set. Now, let’s see what they can do.

I hope that Ryan can stoke a fire under Romney, as Sarah Palin tried to do to John McCain.

The time for “go along to get along” is over. Mitt needs to get up on his hind legs and fight.

For America’s sake.