Hating Gingrich: A Bipartisan Pastime (by ContraSuggest)

It is a foregone conclusion that people on the left end of the political spectrum (aka, morons) categorically despise Newt Gingrich.  It’s easy to understand why, since Mr. Gingrich stands firmly against their statist worldview and made a career of tearing down and offering viable alternatives to their leftist shibboleths.  But Newt has raised more than just the ire of statists; he’s also regularly savaged by those on the political right.  Veteran writer and columnist Peggy Noonan, befuddled and dismayed over Gingrich’s lead in the polls, professed that’s she’s never met a Gingrich supporter.  John Derbyshire refers to Newt as a “gasbag.”  Mona Charen, in so many words, called him a tofu conservative.  Dr. Thomas Sowell characterized Newt’s debate comments on immigration as “amnesty.”  Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who worked in the U.S. House under Speaker Newt back in the 1990s, couldn’t find a kind word to say about him.  One of the premiere conservative news sources, National Review Online, featured a condescending slide-show spoofing Newt.  Glen Beck says he’s a big-government progressive.  The list of negative comments seems to go on and on, some of which have been addressed in previous posts.  Some of the people denigrating Newt are partisan political hacks and blowhards; some are well-respected conservative political analysts (many that we personally revere).  Could they all be wrong?  For the most part, yes.  Let’s get something straight, the Office of The President-Elect is not about marching in lockstep with any conventional wisdom.  We’re unabashed, dyed-in-the-wool conservatives here, but our analyses are independent and fact-based; if we disagree, even with the views of conservative luminaries, you can bet your ass we’re going to forcefully state our case with reason and facts.  We have enthusiastically endorsed Newt Gingrich for president and stand by that endorsement.  There will doubtlessly be innumerable future attacks on the former Speaker.  Naturally, any baseless or tenuous criticisms will be challenged here for the duration of the primary process.

          

Will the Real Conservative Please Stand Up?

Various organizations, both liberal and conservative, provide statistical ratings based upon legislators’ congressional voting records.  Here’s a list of eleven such organizations and how they ranked Newt Gingrich for the year 1994, a time when he was still in Congress.  Note that the organizations are grouped in ideological order, beginning with the extremely liberal; conservative groups at the end:

Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)- 5%

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)- 14%

Committee on Political Action of the AFL-CIO (COPE)- 13%

Consumer Federation of America (CFA)- 10%

League of Conservation Voters (LVC)- 0%

Concord Coalition (CON)- 74%

National Security Index of the American Security Council (NSI)- 100%

Chamber of Commerce of the United States (COC)- 91%

American Conservative Union (ACU)- 100%

National Tax Limitation Committee (NTLC)- 96%

Christian Coalition (CHC)- 100%

This, of course, is not the report card of a closet liberal (or any other kind of liberal for that matter).  Yet Newt’s conservative enemies continue to make baseless criticisms about his lack of conservatism.  As stated in an earlier post, Newt has on some occasions strayed from conservative orthodoxy.  However, much of the criticism coming from the right makes him out to be an incoherent, unpredictable, and thus dangerous, conservative iconoclast.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  I get that Newt is an egoist, sometimes a curmudgeon, and perhaps a generally abrasive personality who hasn’t always worked well with others.  He has tended to piss people off.  Fine.  If that’s the criticism, then his detractors should go ahead and say so, but they must stop pretending that he’s not a conservative simply because he pisses them off.  They’re entitled to their opinions but they’re not entitled to make up stuff.  This puerile idiocy is damaging our chances of knocking-off Oblabla.

Gingrich or Romney?

Democrats recently ran an attack add against Mitt Romney, accurately stating (for a change) that the Governor, as recently as 2002, avowed that he would “protect and defend a woman’s right to choose.”  In the next clip from 2007 Romney declares “The right next step is to see Roe v. Wade overturned.”  Should Roe be overturned, individual states could place serious curtailments on, or outlaw abortion altogether.  This would hardly amount to protecting and defending a woman’s right to choose.  This is one of the reasons why Mitt has a credibility problem concerning his consistency on critically important issues.  We’re not talking about changing one’s opinion on the number of loan guarantees to be extended to Micronesia.  We’re talking about a major core issue for conservatives; opposition to abortion is non-negotiable, yet in the space of 5 years’ time Mr. Romney changed from pro-choice to wanting to see Roe overturned.  This transition, while welcomed, conveniently took place at the same time he transitioned from governor of uber-liberal Taxachussetts, to full-time Republican presidential candidate.  Hmm.  I rhetorically ask, has Newt Gingrich in the course of his 35-year public career ever been pro-choice?  I can find no record of it.  If anyone can, please post it here for all of us to see.

Versus Obama

Gingrich-loathing media boobs gleefully point out that Obama fears a Romney candidacy, while hoping against hope that Gingrich will be the candidate, because they believe defeating him would be a simple matter.  Let’s remember that President Carter’s strategists (and Carter himself!) badly wanted Reagan as an opponent in 1980 because they deemed him an amiable dunce, and loose cannon, that they could easily dispatch.  Reagan cleaned Carter’s clock and went on to win a landslide victory.  Team Obama had better be careful what they wish for.  I positively guarantee that Gingrich will obliterate Oblabla in every one of their debate encounters; there can be no other outcome.  That’s not to say that President Vapid is incapable of landing blows on Newt, employing distortions and demagoguery, but that he would ultimately be overmatched.  The brilliant conservative history professor would systematically dismantle and shred the propaganda-spewing leftist “law professor.”  No contest.

Bottom line here: conservative pundits should stick to the facts when criticizing Gingrich.  I’m all for hyperbole and sarcasm, but some of these people have drifted into the land of make-believe; a place usually reserved for liberals.

Defending Newt’s Conservative Street Cred (by ContraSuggest)

Imagine suddenly waking in the middle of yet another Republican presidential debate to witness the truly surreal event of Mitt Romney criticizing Newt Gingrich for not being conservative enough on the issue of illegal immigration.  The thought of Mitt criticizing Newt for not being conservative enough on anything should be enough to convince anyone that they were still asleep and dreaming.  Well to be fair, Mitt didn’t actually use the words not conservative enough, but that was certainly the implication, when he and Michelle Bachmann objected to Gingrich’s comments regarding work visas for some current, long-time illegal aliens.  Sadly the conservative news media jumped all over it as a chance to expose Newt as the conservative pretender many of them apparently believe him to be. 

Let’s break it down, shall we?  Gingrich is a life-long movement-conservative who, admittedly, has gone astray on several issues over the span of a 40-year career.  I’m disappointed that many respected figures in the conservative news media have blown this out of proportion in an attempt to diminish the former Speaker.  I think it’s counterproductive, pathetic, and embarrassing when conservatives start eating their own. 

Gingrich has been in the public eye since the mid 1970s; in that time he has been a back-bencher in the House of Representatives, Republican Minority Whip, a conservative revolutionary who led Republicans to their stunning 1994 victory in the House, a lecturer, a small business owner, and a political consultant.  Over 15 year’s worth of his comments on a panoply of subjects are a part of the House congressional record, he has done thousands of television and print media interviews, he has authored over 30 in-depth books on a wide range of socio-economic and historical topics, many hundreds of articles and white papers, and has delivered thousands of speeches.  Does anyone imagine that a man who has boldly put himself out there on the field of public discourse, in and out of public office, to such a degree would not have hit a few sour notes along the way?  Mr. Romney, by contrast, has had great private sector accomplishments, unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate, was then governor of Massachusetts for only four years (he chose not to seek reelection), and has been a professional presidential candidate since then.  He doesn’t have much of a record in office to compare and contrast with what he says.  Let’s grow up conservatives; unless we can secure the candidacy of the Savior himself, we’re never going to find someone with whom we agree on all things. 

Gingrich is too willing to “compromise” with the Left, you say?  Those who use compromise as a pejorative are equating compromise with surrender.  With tough negotiation, compromise can mean victory.  In the 1990s, Gingrich’s so-called compromises brought us meaningful welfare reform, tax cuts, and the first balanced federal budget in many decades.  There were many conservative victories during those years because a center-left president was willing to make deals with a conservative Speaker of the House.  If Gingrich is victorious in 2012, this time the conservative will be in the White House, exercising constitutional executive powers and using the bully pulpit of the presidency to bring the federal leviathan to heel.      

Now, let’s briefly summarize Newt’s illegal immigration policy:

·        Secure the Southern border in one year’s time by building a fence and deploying thousands more to police it

·        Bring sanctuary cities into line by withholding federal funding

·        Pursue the unconditional deportation of illegal criminals

·        Legally declare English as the official language of the USA

·        Provide work visas to illegals who’ve been here for many years, working and obeying all of our other laws 

I would remind Newt’s naysayers (who accuse him of changing his positions) that he has consistently argued for the first four of these provisions for many years, there’s no phony “conversion on the road to Iowa” here.  The final provision is what’s causing all the flap, and Newt has to explain it more clearly; however, anyone who would call this an amnesty plan has got to have a screw loose.  By stopping the hemorrhaging at the border, we will prevent another 12 million illegals from entering the country over the course of the next 20 years, and another 12 million in the 20 years after that.  Any illegal who breaks the law gets their ass booted out; if we catch them back here again, they don’t pass go, they don’t collect $200; they go directly to jail.  The last bullet point doesn’t exist in a vacuum; treating it that way has brought ridiculous charges of “amnesty,” and a “magnet” that will lure more illegals to America.  I can understand Romney and Bachmann leveling these charges during the debate.  What I can’t understand is why some well-respected conservative writers, such as National Review Online’s Mona Charen and Thomas Sowell, chose to go after Newt, while failing to present a fact-based analysis of this episode.

ContraSuggest Endorses Newt Gingrich for President!

The following is usually spoken by a teleprompter-reading media zombie in a dopey, robotic, whiny monotone that cuts through you like Fran Dresher doing an impression of the robot from Lost in Space:  “His negatives are too high,” “he has too much baggage,” “he can’t possibly win!”

Absolute, unadulterated poppycock.

For the better part of the last seventeen years the leftist practitioners of meatball journalism in the media, who pass themselves off as legitimate sources of political news, have engaged in foul slander and malicious libel in their reportage of Newt Gingrich.  Thanks to the handiwork of these agenda-driven, hateful liars, the at-large public has been led to believe that the former Speaker of the House is the locus of existential evil in the modern world.  So complete was their saturation of anti-Newt stories that even many Republicans have bought into them.  Gingrich has appeared on news magazine covers as Scrooge, or as the Grinch, he wants tax cuts for the rich, he wants to take food and medicine away from the poor, the elderly and young children, blah, blah, blah.  Let’s not forget that the dinosaur media that gleefully cheerleads for Obama will be trumpeting these types of demagogic attacks against any Republican presidential nominee.  What shameless headline can we expect next, "Republican presidential nominee sacrifices Down’s syndrome infant to Satan at Black Mass; film at 11:00?"  Fortunately, people are not buying into this kind of devious, puerile horseshit in the numbers that they used to.  And despite all of it, Newt’s presidential campaign is going very well, largely because he has been able to do an end run around the media boobs who despise him, by delivering his message and recounting his record directly to voters via televised debates, interviews on Fox News, and his excellent website (please visit newt.org!).

This endorsement was foreshadowed about a month ago in these pages when I wrote the following of Speaker Gingrich:

“…he is the most brilliant conservative to run for the presidency since Ronald Reagan.  At any debate attended by the former Speaker, it is abundantly clear that he’s the smartest guy in the room.  Personally, I agree with Newt on 99% of his policy positions.  When speaking, he seems to be channeling from an encyclopedic data bank in his head; extemporaneous responses to questions are delivered in a folksy, relaxed, articulate manner as if they were scripted by a team of professional, conservative speechwriters and researchers.  His strategy of pitting himself and his fellow candidates against the press, instead of against one another, is well founded.  Unlike his fellow candidates, he has resisted temptations to attack the front-runners, instead delivering scathing critiques of the president and declaring that every Republican should support the eventual nominee, no matter who it may be, to ensure Oblabla’s defeat.”

Equally adept at tearing down Obama’s imaginary socialist Nirvana or eloquently explaining conservative alternatives to it, Gingrich’s superlative communications skills are one of his greatest assets.  As the result of several stellar debate performances, and in the course of mere weeks, he revived what seemed to be a doomed campaign; now polling in the double digits, some national polls put his standing in the race as third, ahead of the ill-equipped Governor Perry.  Not to be dismissed as just a smooth talker; Newt is also the greatest conservative thinker on the contemporary political scene.  His extensive knowledge of policy and U.S. history, and how not to repeat the mistakes of the past, is a powerful weapon in his arsenal.  The unveiling of his 21^st Century Contract with America was the deciding factor in this endorsement.  Consider just some of the key planks that would constitute the partial blueprint of a Gingrich presidency:  

• Immediate signing of multiple executive orders, the first of which will abolish all White House “Czars”
• A full court press to repeal the disastrous Obamacare and Dodd-Frank economic depressants
• Creation of a training requirement for extended federal unemployment benefits to encourage work and improve the quality of our workforce
• Release the U.S. economy from Socialism’s dungeon by reforming entitlements and federal regulations, implementing an optional flat tax alternative to the federal income tax, and a Lean Six Sigma program to reduce waste, fraud and abuse in federal programs  
• Seal America’s southern border and deport illegal criminals while reforming the legal visa system so that law abiding visitors can more easily come to the U.S.
• Enforce the 10^th Amendment (any reduction in federal authority that follows must see a corresponding empowerment of the states or the people)
• Conduct a full audit of the chicanery that passes for monetary policy at the Federal Reserve
• Exercise constitutionally granted congressional and presidential powers to hold federal judges responsible for rendering unconstitutional, un-American decisions.
• Maximize the speed and impact of medical breakthroughs by removing unnecessary obstacles that block new treatments from reaching patients. Encourage research spending towards urgent national priorities, like brain science, with its impact on Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson's, mental health and other conditions that knowledge of the brain will help solve       

As the principle author of the original Contract with America in 1994, Gingrich led House Republicans to their first victory over Democrats in nearly 40 years. As Speaker of the House, Gingrich made sure that the campaign promises made in the Contract were kept.  The Contract consisted of a dozen or so legislative planks that signatories pledged to introduce as legislation, send through committee, and bring to the floor for debate and a general vote within the first 100 days of a Republican controlled House.  Once sworn in, Gingrich and the freshman Republicans worked at the speed of light to keep their campaign promises, and succeeded in doing exactly that.  House votes during the 1995, 104^th congressional session represented the Contract with America translated into legislation.  Every bullet point was introduced, debated, and voted on in precisely 98 days.  This was one of those rare instances in which a political campaign promise was kept in all its detail.

Newt has consistently shown that he possesses a firm understanding of the challenges that face the country, what policies to pursue in order to solve them, and that he’s more than capable of tenaciously and effectively arguing for them.  As an astute historian, he understands better than any other candidate the motivational detail behind the decisions made by our greatest presidents, and their mistakes.  But there’s another essential difference between him and any of the other candidates:  Newt openly acknowledges that he cannot implement the necessary solutions to solve the nation’s manifold problems alone; he asks us not to be for him, but with him.  This is the most refreshing thing to issue forth from the lips of a presidential candidate in the last 30 years; and it also happens to be true.  If we conservatives continue to support arrogant intellectual elites, who claim to better know how we should live our lives than we ourselves do, then we are little better than the dimwit leftists we claim to oppose.  A President Gingrich would work with the Tea Party, not against it.

I urge all my readers and colleagues to throw their support behind Newt Gingrich for President!

ContraSuggest Critiques the 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates

I’m sure that my loyal readers have been waiting with baited breath to read my take on the candidates.  With President Oblabla extremely vulnerable due to the abject failure of his ham-handed leftist policies, and the country lying in near economic ruin as a result, one would think that the nomination of a viable Republican candidate to defeat him would be nothing more than a formality.  Unfortunately things don’t always go as planned.  This group of contenders leaves a lot to be desired.  After closely watching about eight hours worth of candidate debates, I’m now prepared to offer my thoughts, having dedicated a paragraph or so to each candidate.  Read on True Believers, and let me know your thoughts!          

Texas Governor Rick Perry

How could this guy be the front-runner for anything?  I just don’t get it.  His policies as Texas governor have come under legitimate fire as often as they’ve been praised.  At some point we have to look at the way this guy presents himself, and how that affects his electability.  Just look at the way he stands up at the podium, like someone poured quick dry cement into his suit jacket.  Devoid of charisma, he’s also a woefully inarticulate, monotone spokesman for the conservative cause, often tripping over his words, sounding unmeasured, unpracticed, and clumsy.  After being attacked by his opponents in one of the Fox News debates for saying that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme, he was given no less than three opportunities to defend that statement.  Each time he failed to do so.  In the course of a 60 second rebuttal, an articulate candidate could have easily demonstrated why the Social Security system is the very definition of a Ponzi scheme, and what we may do in order to fix it.  At least that statement was theoretically defendable; his other policies that were criticized were not and, quite frankly, his attempted defense of them didn’t inspire confidence.  One of the keys to winning this election will be garnering the votes of independents.  If Perry wins the nomination he will get sliced to pieces by the demagogue-in-Chief and his slanderous attack dogs in and out of the lib media, thus losing the independent vote and the election.  As abysmal as Obama’s policies have been, as deleterious to the state of the nation, the Republican nominee can’t expect to win the election by default.  He or she will aggressively have to take the fight to Obama; Perry’s bumbling efforts will amount to nothing more than the slap of a velvet glove.  If this cardboard cutout seizes the nomination, it’ll be “four more years” for our comrade president.                    

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

Romney, more articulate than Perry (which doesn’t really say much), is a spirited fighter who would most certainly go after President Pinko with great vigor.  The only problem is that he’s a liberal closet queen.  I believe him only to a point, when he says he understands the free market; his policies as governor of the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts say otherwise.  Let’s not forget that he is a relatively recent convert to conservative positions on several core social issues.  Sorry, but I just don’t trust him.  Although he may have the best chance of beating Oblabla in the general election, he still has to get past the current front-runner Perry to do it, which, God knows why, may be difficult.  Even if he can win, it may be bitter-sweet, for I suspect that underneath those custom tailored dark suits lies a pair of frilled pink panties, sporting a label that reads “Kiss me, I’m a Moderate” (aka, a libtard).        

Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachman

I have been an admirer of Representative Bachman for many years.  She’s conservative through and through, well-versed on the issues, has fought in the trenches for years against the statist Matrix, has performed consistently well in the debates, and is absolutely adorable (no one in the press will point that last one out, so I will).  The well-versed Mrs. Bachman filled the vacuum created when Sara Palin went of the deep end a few years back, when her weirdness and lack of detailed knowledge of the issues precluded her from becoming a viable conservative Republican presidential candidate.  Unfortunately for Mrs. Bachman, and for good reason, the American voting public has very rarely entrusted the presidency to U.S. House members.  Due to the lack of requisite executive experience, and because being a House member is overall considered too small-time an affair compared to leading the free world, Mrs. Bachman’s chances of seizing the nomination are nil.  However, she has positioned herself well for a potential vice presidential nomination.  Even if that doesn’t come to pass, Bachman will attain future high office in her home state of Minnesota (the offices of either senator or governor) which will set her up for an even stronger presidential candidacy in the future.  Keep your eye on her; one way or the other, she’s a force to be reckoned with.   

Texas Representative Ron Paul

Where does one begin with this peculiar little man?  Alternatively brilliant and off-the-wall whacky (sometimes in the course of the same sentence), Rep. Paul is somewhat of an ideological enigma.  When critiquing the out-of-control Federal Reserve, the enactment of the latest federal economic “stimulus,” or the bane of America’s welfare state, one cannot help but cheer loudly for the good doctor.  More a libertarian than a conservative, however, he in turn advocates such lunacy as the legalization of prostitution, and hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.  His extreme isolationist foreign policy views are incomprehensible and dangerous.  He would counter, as would his legions of supporters (which include notable academics), that I’m simply wrong and insufficiently versed in the Constitution.  They say that the Founders, being opponents of foreign entanglements, would support Paul’s position.  Well I’m here to tell you that the Paulbots do not hold a monopoly on Constitutional interpretation and what the Founders intended.  When the likes of Washington and Jefferson wrote on the subject of “entangling alliances with none,” they did not intend that the U.S. become an isolationist nation, or never engage in foreign military operations, nor even a complete refusal to engage in alliances.  Paul and his supporters mistakenly think that enemy aircraft need to be flying sorties over Montana in order to justify U.S. military action.  Not so.    

Every time Paul gets into trouble over making some crazy statement, like when he said that the U.S. should just let the totalitarian cutthroat mullocracy in Iran build nuclear weapons, he always uses the Constitution as a shield to defend himself.  This is sort of like a criminal using an innocent bystander as a shield in a shootout with police.  Mind you, not only does he not support the potential use of preemptive military force to prevent the Iranians’ nuclear aspirations (which, if done without the consent of congress, would be a constitutionally dubious action); he doesn’t even support the use of diplomatic pressures or embargoes to deter them (there’s nothing in the constitution that prevents that).  Finally, Mr. Paul claims that the reason for the 9/11 attacks was that “we bombed Iraq for 10 years.”  Oh, the pain!  In the end Ron Paul is nothing more than a fringe candidate that has no chance of capturing the Republican nomination.

PS I like really like his son, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)                            

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich

Newt suffers from occasional lapses in tactical political judgment.  This has cost him dearly in the polls, a setback that he will not recover from.  This is colossally tragic because he is the most brilliant conservative to run for the presidency since Ronald Reagan.  At any debate attended by the former Speaker, it is abundantly clear that he’s the smartest guy in the room.  Personally, I agree with Newt on 99% of his policy positions.  When speaking, he seems to be channeling from an encyclopedic data bank in his head; extemporaneous responses to questions are delivered in a folksy, relaxed, articulate manner as if they were scripted by a team of professional, conservative speechwriters and researchers.  His strategy of pitting himself and his fellow candidates against the press, instead of against one another, is well founded.  Unlike his fellow candidates, he has resisted temptations to attack the front-runners, instead delivering scathing critiques of the president and declaring that every Republican should support the eventual nominee, no matter who it may be, to ensure Oblabla’s defeat.  The greatest theatrical casualty of Newt’s failed candidacy is that we will never get to see him crush Barry O., mano-a-mano, in a debate.  Sad indeed; that beat-down would have really been something to see!                   

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum

I love Rick Santorum.  I love his honesty; I love his unflagging defense of social conservatism; I love his courage in bluntly stating who America’s enemies are; I love his Senate voting record (enough of it, anyhow); and I love his ability to articulately defend it all.  Rick Santorum doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning the nomination.    

  

Former Utah Governor John Huntsman (former U.S. Ambassador to China)

I hate John Huntsman.  I hate his shameless pandering to the “middle” (read, “left”); I hate his wishy-washy internationalist view of America’s enemies; I hate his phony, tofu conservatism; and I hate the way he uses weasel words to defend it all.  John Huntsman doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades of winning the nomination.

Former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain

I wanted to be able to support Herman Cain; really I did.  But I just can’t.  On too many occasions he has been short on specifics when it comes to answering questions regarding pivotal issues.  This man was a successful CEO of large corporations, after which he hosted a popular radio show.  I figured that these resume bullets would have given him the range to speak articulately on a number of issues, but they did not.  For example, it was revealed in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace that Mr. Cain was unacquainted with the so called “Arab Right of Return” (the Palestinian belief that they have a right to return and lay claim to lands that they “temporarily” abandoned in 1947 when an army of Arabs/Muslims unsuccessfully attacked the fledgling state of Israel with the goal of slaughtering all the Jews therein).  Now look, I don’t expect that everybody should be a history bookworm like me, but if you’re going to run for freaking president you damn well better educate yourself on issues as fundamental as the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Sorry Herman, but the nomination will not be yours.

Sad Conclusion:

Beam me up Scotty, and execute General Order 24!

Strategies for a Republican Victory in 2012 (and beyond) (by ContraSuggest)

One of the enduring legacies of America’s much celebrated junk culture is the continual support for liberals in public office; more people get their political notions from the left-wing entertainment industry than at any other time in American history.  Add to this mix the influence of far-left TV comedians, web board administrators, news commentators, educators, elected officials, priests, rabbis, scout leaders, judges, and government bureaucrats, and it fast becomes obvious why the mental disorder known as liberalism cannot be eradicated from our governmental institutions.  This constant brainwashing of the politically ignorant and largely apathetic segment of the public has produced an atmosphere in which the precepts of conservatism have taken on the character of social leprosy.  In this shallow, hedonistic atmosphere, conservatives are doomed before they open their mouths to speak.  Notions such as exercising personal responsibility, spending only as much as you earn, and observing the golden rule, are bloody casualties of America’s morally and ethically corrupt Lady Gaga culture.  Those immersed in it, but uninterested in the details of public affairs, invariably develop a default setting which basically says: Bush was a fascist idiot, but Obama is mad cool!        

For decades, conservatives’ attempts to convince a puerile, junk culture-informed public to change its direction have fallen on deaf ears.  Despite the magnificent efforts of the Tea Party, the U.S. population has become more politically Balkanized than ever before.  Although the movement is strong and effective, the troglodyte media has successfully portrayed Tea Partiers as a bunch of toothless, bigoted, out-of-touch, neo-Nazi hicks.  Not to Tea Party supporters, of course (which I count myself among), who could never be fooled by so crass and ridiculous a characterization, but to the junk culture automatons referenced above.  Conservatives might be tempted to say “to hell with them, who needs them anyway?”  Sadly, we do, if we’re ever going to assemble a winning electoral majority and potentially save our exceptional American traditions from winding up on the slag heap of history.  The Tea Party must make political inroads in liberal geographic strongholds like the extreme East and West Coasts of the country, their virtual strongholds in cyberspace, and cultural institutions like universities and the old school media.  What is required is an aggressive, multi-pronged offensive.  Many of these individuals, primarily secular and unengaged in anything political, do vote, and we’re going to need converts from this group.  Keep in mind that even if these people do not vote, they greatly contribute to an atmosphere conducive to the achievement of leftist goals; the zeitgeist’s acceptance of leftist policy is just as much a factor in the passage of bad laws, as actual voters who pull the lever for leftist politicians.  Convincing these people to swim against the currents of leftism created by the drive-by media is problematic to say the least.  So how will conservatives get their messages out, and what will prevent them from being dead on arrival?           

The Canadian writer Marshall McLuhan famously remarked that “the medium is the message,” which implied that the characteristics of a particular medium, rather than the information it disseminates, is what influences and controls society.  Regardless of the speed and efficiency of current communications technology, it makes little difference whether young people are passing notes to one another on slips of paper in English class, or whether they’re texting each other on $500 iPhones, either way the content of the messages remain the same.  McLuhan has been vindicated to some degree as evidenced in the public’s obsession with technological communications gadgets.  This ubiquitous technology, with which potential voters are so enamored, represents a preexisting conduit through which the conservative message can flow.  The medium may well be the message, but if information carried by the medium is targeted and contains consistent themes, it will start to change perceptions.  These technological mediums must be fully exploited if we’re going to have a chance of deprogramming the people who use them of their leftist knee-jerk emotionalism, and fill that void with reason and facts.  We must use the public’s fascination with e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, mobile texting, Skype and all the various hardware gadgets that enable them, in order to get our message out.  Quite frankly, we need more conservatives to get involved in the entertainment industry, writing and producing TV programs and movies; like any other money making venture, if a conservative themed TV program is well-written it will resonate with viewers, and if it garners high ratings, it will make money and be successful (remember “24?”).  Over time the content of the messages will start to sink in.  The Republican Party needs a leader, and or presidential candidate who is tough, articulate, charismatic, conservative and adept at organizing and leading a high-tech multimedia assault on our far-left, corrupt social institutions; while at the same time aggressively taking on his or her Democratic opponent.   

A tall order to be sure, but the only way we can win is to understand that deft use of information technology, greater control of various traditional media and understanding junk culture trends, are necessary components in reaching the public in any kind of effective way in the 21^st century.  This process needs to start far in advance of an election; the culture wasn’t lost overnight, it can’t be taken back overnight either.  One thing is for certain, the next Republican candidate can no more hope to be elected president with our compromised cultural institutions actively supporting his or her opponent, than a boxer can hope to win his next fight, with the referee, timekeeper, and judges all in his opponent’s corner.  No one person can do this alone, the standard bearer will have to coordinate and lead an orchestrated effort that must include the aid of all conservatives, currently in the minority in most American cultural institutions.  We must strongly reaffirm that conservatives are in the minority not because their worldview is wrong.  They’re in the minority because going down the road of liberalism is easy, hedonistic, seductive, and emotionally satisfying.  All individuals are flawed, but since left-wing junk culture celebrates flaws and wears them as a badge of honor, many voters buy into that thinking, hoping that their own flaws will be excused instead of being held to a higher standard.  It’s time for conservatives to repackage their brand ID and make thorough use of both traditional communications mediums and the popular newer mediums of the third-wave information age to take back the mindset of the American public.

Will Obama’s Failures Destroy his Presidency before they Destroy the U.S. Economy? (by ContraSuggest)

Libtards are fond of having it both ways.  Whenever I say that Obama has deeply worsened our economic problems since implementing his socialistic policies, they claim that the facts say otherwise.  When I present the facts in any kind of cogent detail, their eyes glaze over and they start calling me a racist, or say that I’m “for the rich,” or that I want to push grandma over the cliff in a wheelchair, or some other such incoherent, ridiculous nonsense.  While the last thing I want to do is bore people with a lot of cold, sterile facts and statistics, there really is no alternative if one is to rebuke the roaring liars that defend the president’s benumbed economic policies.  Let me also remind people; pointing out the fact that Republicans are occasionally retarded does not absolve the president of guilt for trashing America’s economy.  So, for the benefit of the Obama youth movement, the willfully ignorant, and the rest of you benighted libtards, here’s a recap of the comrade president’s inept bungling regarding the economy:

• For 2 straight years, against the objections of conservatives in and out of government, the president and the Democrats passed into law every single economic program that they said was necessary for recovering the economy.  The litany is nearly endless- Stimulus program after stimulus program, bailout after bailout, truckloads of additional federal monies going to cities and states, the passage of deficit ridden, pork-laden budgets, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and on and on, ad nauseum
• Since he took office, there’s been a net loss of 2.5 million jobs, unemployment has gone from around 7% to around 9%, and in June of 2011 there were only 18,000 jobs created in a nation of 300 million people, not enough job creation to even keep pace with population growth!  GDP growth is currently hovering at about 1%.  These anemic numbers might be good news in Sri Lanka, but they’re incapable of lifting the U.S. economy out of, what can now fairly be called, the Obama Depression
• There is not one single economic initiative that the president or his party has put forth since Bush left office that has had a positive effect on the depressed economy (and no, I do not believe that the various stimuli (Bush’s or Obama’s) saved the world, they instead hurt it immeasurably)
• President Obama himself is on the record as saying the following- 1.  that if he did not bring about an economic recovery in three year’s time, he would be a one term president.  2.  That if Congress passed his 2009 stimulus package, unemployment would not go above 8% (it peaked, we hope, at 10.2% since then, and is now hovering at 9%).  By his own criteria he has clearly failed     

Just in the last eight months (2011):

• In January, Obama’s own commission (Bowles/Simpson), recognizing the gravity of the nation’s debt problem, called for $ 4 trillion in budget cuts.  Comrade Obama ignored those recommendations
• Later that month in his state of the union address to Congress, we know that he placed diminished priority on the nation’s economic situation because he spoke for 35 minutes before even mentioning the economy (way to think it through, genius!)
• In February he proposed a budget that called for $400 billion in spending cuts (over many years, and most of which weren’t specific).  Just to put this into perspective for you Obama worshiping dim-wits, the federal government’s yearly budget deficit for 2011 is in the $1.6 trillion range; our ten year cumulative debt is in the $15 trillion range).  Mr. Obama is trying to pay our bills with the loose change he found in the couch pillows.  So harebrained was this budget proposal, that the Democratic controlled Senate voted it down 98 to 0
• In April, the comrade president put forth an economic proposal (of sorts) that was so fuzzy and short on specifics, that the head of the Congressional Budget Office commented, “… we don’t estimate speeches.”  In other words, the plan was so vague that the CBO couldn’t even score it
• During the so-called debt-crisis, the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed two responsible budgets, “The Ryan Plan,” and “Cut, Cap, and Balance.”  The Senate refused to consider them and Obama vowed to veto them
• John Chambers, managing director and chairman of Standard & Poor’s sovereign ratings committee (that recently downgraded America’s debt rating from AAA to AA+) publically stated that the downgrade would not have happened if the $4 trillion worth of spending cuts, recommended by Bowles/Simpson and supported by Congressman Paul Ryan, had been enacted. 
• After the inadequate budget deal brokered with the Senate and the president by Speaker Boehner, S&P proceeded with the aforementioned downgrade.  The administration and the rest of the Democratic Party phonies are blaming the Tea Party!  The Tea Partiers didn’t want the Boehner deal, but did express support for the Ryan Plan, CC&B and deep budget cuts.  So the Democrats are trying to blame the downgrade on the only people in the country who wake up every morning, open their eyes, and don’t see their intestines  

Any serious discussion about the plight of the U.S. economy must include reform of entitlement programs.  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid collectively represent over half of the federal budget.  These programs have been so badly constructed and managed, that they’re consuming an ever-larger portion of the government’s budget each year.  In 30 years’ time, if allowed to grow, underfunded, at their current exponential rate, they will consume 100% of the federal budget, leaving all other federal programs without funding.  Only the Ryan Plan proposed a workable solution for the problems with Medicare; no one on Capitol Hill is talking seriously about the financial black hole that is Social Security.  This has to change now if we’re to have any hope of waking up from our fiscal nightmare.   

For the better part of the past 2 ½ years, as previously expressed in these pages, I have felt, that despite Obama’s incompetence, he would be reelected in 2012.  For the first time I am beginning to have doubts about that.  His contributions to the wholesale trashing of this country’s economy are so pervasive, and run so deep that I’m beginning to think his presidency is in jeopardy.  As history has repeatedly shown, a single day can be an eternity in electoral politics, the election is over a year away, and the worm can turn many times between now and then.  Not to mention the fact that Republicans are more than capable of screwing up a wet dream; so Oblabla’s defeat is by no means a certainty.  We’ll just have to continue to actively fight in every way we can, and hope that the right candidate emerges in the Republican field who is capable of taking the false prophet out of the game.  (See today’s second blog post on the subject of successful strategies for a Republican victory).  In the meantime, keep the faith, and stay tuned.

Libtards Declare: “OBAMA IS NOT A SOCIALIST!!!” (Thou Doth Protest Too Much) (by ContraSuggest)

Don’t Say the ‘S’ Word!

When critics of President Obama’s economic policies employ the use of the word socialism, they are immediately demonized by the administration’s lap dogs as ignoramuses resorting to hyperbole.  I want to be reasonable and fair here.  So in order to see if this holds water, let’s agree on a good working definition of socialism and then see if Obama’s policies rise to the level of that definition.  But first let’s remember that Barack Obama has, over the years forged alliances with several leading socialists.  As president he has allowed the appointment of renowned socialists to influential positions in his administration: Carol M. Browner, the administration’s global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of the organization Socialists International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for “global governance” and states that rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.  Former White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn, publicly praised the mass-murdering former dictator of China, Mao Zedong, as one of her “favorite philosophers.”  Obama’s former Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, an admitted communist, was forced to resign after it came to light that in 2004 he signed a 911 Truthers petition, calling for an investigation into so-called unanswered questions on the subject of the Bush Administration being complicit in the 9/11 attacks.  The president has never been held accountable, and has never so much as offered an apology, to the American people for hiring self-admitted socialists and communists to fill influential administration positions.   

Now let’s get down to a good working definition of socialism: Socialism is an economic system in which the production and distribution of goods and services are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity.  There are many varieties of socialism.  Some socialists tolerate capitalism to varying degrees, as long as the government maintains the dominant influence over the economy; others insist on an abolition of private enterprise.  So, according to our definition, are Obama’s policies dragging our economy more or less toward socialism? 

Let’s outline a few of the president’s main domestic policies, one by one, and hold them up to our definition. 

• A trillion dollar plus “stimulus” package that allowed the federal government to hand over massive amounts of cash to, and buy up shares in, ailing public and private sector financial institutions.  There were at least three more rounds of stimuli (that didn’t stimulate anything except the federal government’s debt), and allowed the feds to pick winners and losers rather than the market  
• An auto bailout package that allowed the federal government to own a controlling share in one of America’s largest companies, General Motors.  GM shareholders were screwed-over while the bloated UAW received a huge windfall (workers of the world unite!)
• A “Cap and Trade” bill that would allow the federal government to penalize private businesses for doing business, by auctioning permits to companies that emit greenhouse gasses, which will impose massive costs on the use of fossil fuels
• A Health Care law that will bring the entire healthcare industry under the jurisdiction of the federal government; including provisions that will force everyone to purchase insurance (whether they chose to or not) and the forcing of private insurers to cover everyone despite health status.  Punitive fines will be imposed to any private citizen or business that doesn’t comply        

Long-term government ownership of both private mortgage securities and formerly private corporations (and don’t forget President Obama actually firing GM’s CEO!); and forcing citizens to purchase health care; are clearly taking us in the direction of the actual definition of socialism: “…the production and distribution of goods and services are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise.”  In a country where the government does not own private banks and automobile manufacturers, then passes legislation that allows it to own or exercise greater control over those entities, we’ve moved closer to socialism, as accurately defined.  When the federal government moves to expand a hopelessly broken Medicaid program to the currently uninsured; the art of cost-shifting and implementing artificial price-controls on medicines and procedures, will inevitably lead to pricing employer-provided and private coverage out of the market.  After that, the only choice left would be the public option.  So, under the Obama healthcare plan, to a greater degree, “…the production and distribution of goods and services would be controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise;” again, specifically meeting the definition of socialism. 

 

 The Obama administration has continuously stated a need to make our economic system and government policies “fairer;” this notion has been the impetus for a crusade to redistribute wealth from the people who earn money to people who earn little or none.  Raising taxes on the so-called wealthy, and redistributing it to lower income earners in the form of “targeted” tax cuts and new or expanded government benefits, is attempting to further change our free market system from one that relies on profit motive and risk, to one that uses the euphemisms of “fairness” and “government guarantees.”  This clearly rises to the level of the second part of our definition of socialism: “(an economic system)…in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity.”   So those who deride Obama’s critics for claiming that his policies are socialistic, either don’t know what socialism is, or know precisely what it is and are just playing dumb.  Either way they’re the ones using hyperbole, and are the true ignoramuses.

The government public sector has never been a sustainable source of economic prosperity; only the engine of the free market, driven by elements of profit motive and risk, can create the type of robust activity necessary to drive the country’s economy.  Although the U.S. private sector has never been completely private, it has continued to perform badly as more and more government controls have been placed upon it.  It’s true that government creates millions of government jobs; but those jobs are not created by entrepreneurs figuring employee expenses into a business model designed to bring about profit.  Each government job’s salary, health and retirement benefits package is paid for by money that is taxed away from citizens, hindering essential economic activity and job creation in the private sector.  The notion that the government can create anything other than the illusion of temporary prosperity, through the hiring of lots of government workers and wealth redistribution, is simply false.  The great economic strides America has made throughout the last century and a half (thriving industry, high standards of living, technological innovations, etc.) were not brought about by government programs, but by the economic growth from a booming free market.  When agents of the federal government (Czars and the like) can tell us how much energy we can consume, what medical procedures we can and can’t get, what kinds of light bulbs we can screw into our living room lamps, when we can afford to buy a car, how much toilet water we may defecate into, and whether or not my elderly grandfather is eligible for a heart valve procedure, our freedoms have eroded to an unacceptable degree.  So welcome to Barry O’s socialist America, aka “New Havana.”