Category Archives: Republicans

Mitt Falls Off the ‘Conservative’ Wagon Again

Economy, Elections, Political Economy, Republicans, Ron Paul

Conspicuous by its absence from the Republican wrestling smack-down tonight was mention of Mitt Romney’s neo-Keynesian slip the other day.

Mitt Romney said Tuesday that cutting spending slows growth in the economy — a rhetorical slip more akin to an argument a Democrat might make than a Republican.
Speaking in Shelby Township, MI, the former Massachusetts governor took a question about the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission empaneled by President Obama to address the nation’s deficit and debt issues. In his response, he said that addressing taxes and spending issues are essential.
“If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy,” he said in part of his response. “So you have to, at the same time, create pro-growth tax policies.”

What next? An admonition about the government’s need to stimulate demand? (Read more about Romney’s economics here.)

Other than Ron Paul’s undignified venture into the wrestling ring (he called Rick Santorum fake in a new ad), was there anything worth discussing?

Romney & Santorum’s Synophobia

China, Debt, Elections, Propaganda, Republicans, Russia, Trade

“China was America’s second-largest trading partner behind only Canada,” reports The New Republic. “It accounted for 13.6 percent of all trade. In other words, billions upon billions of dollars are at stake,” if Romney acts on his bellicosity, as he promised to.

The Republican presidential hopeful sounds more like a card-carrying union member than a former CEO when he outlines his White House agenda for China, urging tariffs and downplaying the threat of a trade war. He extended his tough talk recently to the pages of The Wall Street Journal in a piece epitomizing the protectionist rhetoric he’s deployed for much of his presidential campaign.
“Unless China changes its ways, on day one of my presidency I will designate it a currency manipulator and take appropriate counteraction,” Romney wrote. “A trade war with China is the last thing I want, but I cannot tolerate our current trade surrender.”

Here’s another pesky details TNR omits conveniently: China is also our largest creditor.

Just to keep purchasing greenbacks, China is inflating its own money supply. Moreover, inflation in China and the attendant price hikes — brought about because of the debased dollar — could threaten the stability of a country that has “moved more people out of poverty in the shortest amount of time in the history of the planet.”

We owe them!

Sen. Rick Santorum is even crazier when it comes to our Chinese enablers:

“You know, Mitt,” said Santorum during The Washington Post/Bloomberg Republican presidential debate, “I don’t want to go to a trade war. I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China and make America the most attractive place in the world to do business.”

Newt is almost as nutty on this front as his two rivals, adding Russia to America’s enemy equation, and threatening cyberwar against Moscow and Beijing. Maybe cyber-warfare is Gingrich’s idea of a preemptive strike.

Paul Babeu Is a Patriot (and a Babe)

Homosexuality, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Republicans

Paul Babeu, writes the Washington Watcher at VDARE.COM., “has always said exactly the right thing about immigration—both legal and illegal. Unlike most politicians, he seemed to have a real grasp of the issue beyond just saying ‘I oppose amnesty and want to secure the border.'”

I’d be far less guarded about Babeu, who has also recently reiterated his fidelity to Ron Paul libertarianism with respect to gay marriage. Babeu, “Pinal County Sheriff and Republican primary candidate for Arizona’s 4th Congressional District,” is being slandered in the liberal pulp and pixelated press because a jilted lover (Babeu is gay) is spreading unverified stories about him, tales these outlets are only too pleased to propagate.

The Phoenix New Times is a far Left Open Border rag that has often made dishonest accusations against Arizona patriotic immigration reformers. (Including, repeatedly, VDARE.com). Its article about Babeu is filled with interviews with various immigration lawyers who served up lines about how it was all is indicative of an “atmosphere that’s been created politically in this state, so that if you get angry at someone who is Hispanic, you immediately jump down to the level of threatening to deport him” blah blah.

[VDARE.COM]

“Babeu’s acknowledgment that he is gay came after a story in the Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly magazine that quoted a former lover as saying Babeu threatened his immigration status if he revealed their relationship. Babeu denied claims he tried to threaten the man, a former campaign volunteer. He said the accusations were an attempt to hurt his political career. The legal status of the man, identified only as Jose by the New Times and Babeu, was unclear. His lawyer said he was unavailable for comment but might be available in a few days.” (HuffPostPolitics)

Comparisons to the Anthony Weiner worm are being made. The latter is married. Babeu is single.

I guess I would question the wisdom of engaging in an affair with the wrong man, but when it comes to affairs of the heart, who among us has not similarly stumbled? The fact that Babeu is the consummate macho, disciplined and dedicated ex-military man might have contributed to the pressures of reconciling the personal and the public. Such stressors lead to mistakes.

Reality Check For America’s Armchair Warriors

China, Fascism, Foreign Policy, Liberty, Military, Republicans, Russia

Said Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. … we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.”

And that was then.

Nevertheless, Mitt Romney (“I will insist on a military so powerful no one would ever think of challenging it”), and Rick Santorum (“I will not cut one penny out of military spending”) both decry the “gutting” of the military by Obama. They are following a not-so proud tradition. A “former president George W. Bush told his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner, ‘The best way to revitalize the economy is war, and the US has grown stronger with war.'”

“In 2009 alone,” reports RT, “the United States was responsible for almost half of the world’s total military spending – 46 per cent, or 712 billion US dollars. Since then, the figures have only grown, to the point that American military spending now exceeds that of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined. The US has more than 700 military bases in 130 countries around the world.”

Wikipedia confirms that assessment.