Category Archives: Republicans

UPDATED: DOD Is Killing Us (& On So-Called Cuts To Killer Spending/ers)

Debt, Economy, Military, Republicans, War

When the need to slash the military is raised, Republicans typically counter that their beloved Department of Defense is a small-ticket item. Blame Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

He who admits half the truth is still a wholesale liar. The DOD is a budgetary killer.

Via Fox News’ Bret Baier:

Each day during the month of November, the government brought in a little more than $5 billion of revenue. That’s a lot of money – but the U.S. government spent in that time more than $11 billion a day. The difference is roughly $6 billion.
Of that $11 billion, the top items were as follows: The Department of Health and Human Services, which goes through roughly $3 billion a day; Social Security, which shells out roughly $2.5 billion a day; the Department of Defense, which runs a $1.8 billion daily tab; and interest on the debt, which eats up $854 million every day.

MORE.

UPDATE (19/12/012): Finally, Republicans, and a couple of Democrats and their anointed experts, are framing all budget proposals out there as they should—and as these worse-than-useless efforts are habitually framed by libertarians (led by Ron Paul): “cuts to designated increases in spending.”

Bret Baier (archived here) has been tackling the structure of the debt:

At last check, it was approaching $16.4 trillion. Just four years ago, it was $10.6 trillion.
The skyrocketing number is, to say the least, reason for concern for every American.
Here’s why:
As of today, every household in the United States owes about $140,000 of this debt.
The country is borrowing roughly $6 billion every day, and $239 million every hour. Put another way, that’s $4 million every minute.
The country runs up so much debt for a fairly basic reason — it spends far more than it takes in. This year, for every dollar in revenue the federal government brought in, it spent two dollars and six cents. That shortfall over the course of the year adds up to the annual deficit. The national debt — or total accumulated debt — is the sum of all annual deficits, minus any surpluses. …

Jack Kerwick Against ‘Conservatives’ For Gargantuan Government

Conservatism, Democrats, Republicans, The Zeitgeist

“Major media feeds on mediocrity,” I wrote in “Just Another Mouth in the Republican Fellatio Machine.” Wanna get a gig in Sodom and Gomorrah? Having boobs and no brains (like Margaret Hoover, Gretchen Carlson, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Krystal Ball, Noelle Nikpour, Dana Perino, and S. E. Cupp) goes a long way.

Otherwise, you will have to learn to parrot one of the party-lines.

Jack Kerwick, of The New American, refuses to play the game:

Throughout the first six years of his presidency, George W. Bush’s Republican Party held strong majorities in both chambers of Congress. Thanks to his policies, and his disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan particularly, the Democrats not only defeated the Republicans in 2006 and 2008, the former actually gained super majorities in the House and the Senate. Bush retired from his second term with a 30-percent approval rating.
Yet no sooner was Bush II on the road back to Crawford, Texas than “the Architect” of the GOP’s defeat — Karl Rove — as well as other Bush lackeys, such as Dana Perino, were signing their contracts to become regulars on Fox News. It is there that such stalwart “conservatives” as Sean Hannity, who daily beats the drums about the Democrats’ exorbitant spending, routinely consults Rove and Perino, accomplices to Bush’s exorbitant spending, for counsel on how to frustrate the Democrats’ exorbitant spending.
It is on Fox that the likes of Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer continue to be treated as bottomless fonts of wisdom in spite of their spectacularly checkered track records on all manner of topics. From the Middle Eastern wars within which we remain mired to the presidential nominations of McCain and Mitt Romney to amnesty for the millions of Third World immigrants who are transforming the character of America, Kristol and Krauthammer have been almost shockingly wrong.
There are numerous other instances that could be cited to show that “the conservative movement” has, by and large, been taken over by fame-seekers of one sort or other. The most recent of which I’m aware is that of World Net Daily.
WorldNetDaily is a popular “conservative” website whose editor, Joseph Farrah, has rightly ripped into Karl Rove for the faux conservative that he is. Yet Farrah just hired former Pennsylvania senator and GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as a regular contributor to WND.
Now, Santorum is about as conservative as Rove. Indeed, if there is any significant difference between the one and the other, or between Santorum and our last president, whose “brain” we are forever told was none other than Mr. Rove himself, I have yet to discover what it could be.
Santorum not only supports “socialized medicine” — i.e., Medicare and Medicaid — but in voting for Medicare Part D, a prescription drug benefit that marked the largest expansion in Medicare since its inception, Santorum actually strengthened socialized medicine while paving the way for ObamaCare.
This former Pennsylvania senator, who enjoys the distinction of having lost his bid for reelection by a larger margin than any senator in the Keystone state’s history, advocates not just “big,” but Gargantuan Government. That Santorum actually wants to increase our troop presence in countries around the world (the 160 or so countries where we currently have troops stationed isn’t sufficient I guess) shows that his foreign policy vision is even more ambitious than that of Bush’s.

Excerpted from “Fame, Fortune, and “the Conservative Movement.”

The only thing about Santorum that is more repulsive than his politics is his constant schmaltzy milking of his daughter’s condition. A cultural conservative, first and foremost, separates his private from his public life and keeps his emotions in check. (Like Romney did. Mitt Romney relented and spoke about his trials, tribulations and good works only when public pressure mounted for him to weep and wobble like a woman.)

Walk Like An Egyptian

Barack Obama, Constitution, Democracy, Democrats, Government, Liberty, Media, Middle East, Propaganda, Republicans, The State

“This just in: The Secret Service backed by the District of Columbia Police Department is battling thousands of protesters outside President Barack Obama’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue ‘palace,’ prompting the socialist ‘leader to leave the building. Officers fired teargas at up to 10,000 demonstrators angered by Obama’s November … decree that expanded his powers. ‘The people want the downfall of the regime,’ the demonstrators chant. ‘Our marches are against tyranny and the constitutional … decree, and we won’t retract our position until our demands are met.'”

The excerpt was from “Walk Like an Egyptian,” the current column. Read more about “the competing realities presented” by an apoplectic press with “a stars-and-stripes bias,” and my hope that Americans act more like Egyptians.

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UPDATED: An Immigrant Thanks Tucker Carlson (Carlson Quoted)

Canada, Conservatism, Economy, IMMIGRATION, Republicans

That US immigrant is … me.

A couple of the regular “conservative” culprits were cogitating, on Bret Bair’s Special Report, over who could come up with the most “inspiring” (read schmaltzy) message to lure the only immigrants America seems eager to court.

The Republican Party was being described as the designated home of the poor, low-skilled, Latin, welfare recipient (by default), likely illegal new arrival, when, out of the blue, a bold Tucker Carlson saw fit to reintroduced an outrageous idea you’ve heard from other patriots (and even from David Frum).

Desirable immigrants, and I paraphrase Mr. Carlson (transcripts, a civilized feature, so rare online, should be up shortly), are those who are financially successful. (For even if you are a stellar guy earning $17,000; other native and immigrant families will be subsidizing your medical care, your nutritional needs—through food stamps—your schooling, etc.)

To flabbergasted glares from his co-panelists, Tucker inquired as to why we were avoiding a “conversation” about an unmistakable trend—as well as about the identities and countries of origin from whence successful immigrants tend to hail (versus the identity of the unsuccessful kind). Carlson even credited the good kind of newcomer for being partial to the host country’s values and culture.

He will be branded as a racist. That’s for sure.

But thanks, Mr. Carlson. And yeah, how about a “positive” message to high-value immigrants, you know, the kind that help pay for the political largess politicians and pundits are so eager to extend? Kind words are seldom directed at those who do not insist on their right to mulct other Americans (immigrants included) out of their earnings.

The process Canada follows is based on the merits of the individual; his education, linguistic skills (English and French), appreciable achievements and likely ability to find employment. Novel, isn’t it?

UPDATE (Dec. 4): The Carlson quote is up. Here is what Mr. Carlson said to his flabbergasted co-panelists:

CARLSON: …”Well, the screen begins with a conversation about outcomes. Why is it that immigrants from certain countries have not thrived and immigrants from other countries have thrived? No one wants to have that conversation because it’s considered mean, but when the future of the country is at stake, it’s worth taking a rational, non-passionate, and, by the way, nonpolitical look at outcomes, and ask real questions like, why is it? You’re not attacking anybody. But these are questions that we need to ask because the country is at stake.”

Meager but meaningful, considering the climate.