Category Archives: Republicans

Beck Breakthrough?

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, IMMIGRATION, Just War, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Liberty, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Republicans

In his groundbreaking series on the American Progressive Movement, Fox News personality Glenn Beck touched today on the differences between Republican and Democrat progressives vis-a-vis foreign policy. This was the closest Beck, the unambiguously pro-war, military-booster came to examining his support for the kind of state expansion (via war) the founders would have abhorred.

“The military is government. The military works like government; is financed like government, and sports many of the same inherent malignancies of government. Like government, it must be kept small.”

Militias are what the founders bequeathed, not mammoth standing armies.

Beck came close to articulating what readers of this space have been reading and imbibing for years. Warring for Democracy is the Republicans’ homage to Woodrow Wilson’s progressivism; nation-building abroad is how the Democrats prefer to honor his “legacy.”

Beck quotes Thomas Jefferson a lot, as he should. But ideological wars like Iraq, unequivocally backed by Beck, belong to the Jacobin—not Jeffersonian—tradition.

I thought I heard Beck quote the 1821 words of secretary of state John Quincy Adams (the 2nd part of the program is not yet on YouTube): “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher of the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

If not Adams, Beck recited another founder’s exhortation against empire.

The next step for Beck is to reject the recreational wars waged in Iraq and Afghanistan with the support of his ilk, and espouse a foreign policy compatible with limited authority and republican virtues. You can’t embrace small government at home and big government abroad. The last Republicans are in the habit of euphemizing as a “strong national defense.”

The beauty of Beck is in his goodness. The fact that at times he says remarkably confused things doesn’t change this.

Here are some glaring mistakes Beck made in today’s program. (Continued below.)

He declared that if Americans knew about the Progressives and their creeping, clandestine agenda, they’d reject it.

It all goes back to immigration, mis-education; the changing face of America, and general rot. A few guns and G-d types may reject the “conservative socialism” (progressivism) in which we are mired based on a visceral feel for the principles of the founding. But most Americans I talk to are clueless—and even hostile to the founding ideas. So let Glenn not presume that progressivism is not in the DNA of a changing America. Once the country is 50 percent Third World, Glenn might as well be talking to the hand.

LOST IN TRANSLATION. After bemoaning how Progressives, having infiltrated America’s institutions, have toiled to alter the meaning of the Constitution, Glenn proposed his own revisionism: rewrite the Federalist Papers so that Americans, whom Glenn insist are never dumb, can understand these brilliant, but difficult, debates.

“Writing In The Age Of The Idiot”:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.’ That genius, Thomas Jefferson, also insisted that liberty would be ‘a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed and enlightened to a certain degree.'”

Updated: Dumb As They Come

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democrats, Journalism, Law, Pop-Culture, Republicans

Among the many dumb things Republicans have given us (read “GOP and Man at Yale”) is a brand of tease “journalism” headed by Hannah Giles, a well-connected, monosyllabic, Town-Hall tartlet, who partook in an ACORN-exposing (tush-wagging) operation. Her partner (he played the pimp) was James O’Keefe, who, it transpires, is even dumber than Hannah.

A recent headline on Nola.com blares:

“ACORN ‘gotcha’ man arrested in attempt to tamper with Mary Landrieu’s office phones. James O’Keefe … a conservative activist who last year posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN, is one of four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans.”

O’Keefe and his pals are “charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony.”

Phone tapping or something.

The little pischer O’Keefe had given “a speech to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian group in New Orleans,” which seems to be standing by him.

While the ACORN fun lasted, Andrew Breitbart put O’Keefe up as some sort of editor on his Big This/Big That websites, and appeared with him and Hannah on all the Republican TV shows. Now Big Breitbart is distancing himself from his protege. I guess AB has some sense of how fascistic and fickle American law and culture can be (you can go to jail for a long time for non-offenses; and become the toast of the town for major offenses). Here’s the interview he hastened to give to Hugh Hewitt.

Update (Jan. 27): “A lawyer for one of the men said outside the courthouse that his clients may have the product of ‘poor judgment’ and that he didn’t intend to commit a crime; lawyers for other defendants could not immediately be reached for comment.”

This defense attorney is right, of course, but the American legal system, which Republicans (like this intrepid contingent of guerrilla journalists) are forever striving to make less constitutional, will fight to keep these idiots under its jurisdiction. It’s reflexive.

Updated: Obama Goes Getto On America (But Easy On Himself)

Barack Obama, Bush, Democrats, Healthcare, Politics, Republicans

HERE’S “what this bum thinks of America,” writes Larry Auster, and manages to capture the cretinous petulance of Obama’s response, at a town hall meeting in Ohio today, to the building resentment:

“… he is still ensconced in his little world, his little gnostic bubble, where reality is supposed to bend to his desires no matter how harmful and irrational they may be, and if it doesn’t, it’s other people’s fault–people who do nasty, ‘ugly’ things, people who ‘scare the bejesus out of everybody,’ people who ‘buzz-sawed’ his beautiful health care bill to smithereens in Massachusetts. Yes, that’s right, he described a peaceful, lawful election in the state of Massachusetts as a ‘buzz saw.’ That’s what this bum thinks of America. All of which is a good sign. It suggests Obama will not adjust to reality, will not ‘grow’ in response to defeat, but will remain a bitter, hostile alien in this country, clinging to his health care bill and his cap and trade, which in turn will make it more and more difficult for him to impose his will on us in any area, and will also make it a reasonable possibility that he will be a one-term messiah. Which is sort of a contradiction in terms, isn’t it?”

Auster rounds off with a Mark Steyn quip (“I’ve never denied that Steyn has his moments,” Larry writes. Ditto.) in response to “Obama’s astounding remark that the reason the voters of Massachusetts chose Republican Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley and thus destroyed the Democratic Party’s revolutionary legislative agenda was that they were angry at eight years of Republican President Bush”:

Presumably, the president isn’t stupid enough actually to believe what he said. But it’s dispiriting to discover he’s stupid enough to think we’re stupid enough to believe it.

Update (Jan. 23): Here is the prepared text of Obama’s “jobs” speech in Elyria, Ohio.”

Précis:

* BO sets the scene by blaming the big banks for this latest bubble created by loose monetary policy and compounded by decades of affirmative-oriented lending policies imposed on banks by government legislation.

* Pats himself on the back for the Recovery Act, bailouts, and nationalization of The Big Three, and for single-handedly averting a Second Great Depression through delirious spending, and by designing functioning, efficient, fair markets (in Obama oratory: “creating the jobs of tomorrow”). Yes, command economics worked in the Soviet Union; it’s working in these United States. Amen, Bro.

* BO then bemoans rising prices. In other words inflation—the increase in the money supply promulgated by the government-owned Federal Reserve’s habit of mucking about with interest rates or plain printing paper. Fiddling with the money supply courtesy of the government-Fed syndicate—and for the purpose of funding, if clandestinely, Big O’s debt—that’s inflation. “The truth is that inflation is caused by government,” observed Ronald Reagan. “It’s caused by government spending more than it takes in, and it will go away just as soon as government stops doing that.”

* Throw into the mix dollops of class warfare and you have a pacified crowd. “[S]ome Americans made huge amounts of money,” blasted BO, “while many others pedaled faster and faster, only to find themselves stuck in the same place.”

Yes, I agree. Do read “Life In The Oink Sector” to find out whose ranks you need to join if you want your wages to rise continuously—up to 50% higher than the average salary out there—never have to fear downsizing; being fired, reprimanded, or worked to the bone, and to retire after 30 years of abusing your “clients” on an annual income of a $100,000. Hint: It’s not the private productive economy.

Remember Lilly Ledbetter (it’s in the speech)! In the little lady’s honor, as Barack reminds us, he unleashed on struggling American businesses armies of strong-arming (and buff-armed, no doubt) Girls Gone Wild, eager for their pound of flesh. Read about it in Barack Against the Boys.)

Shout out for the Obama-expanded SCHIP program, the entitlement plan known as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

More self-congratulations. Barack leaves.

I’m off to barf.

Update IX: Massachusetts Musical Chairs (Brown WINS; Dems Blame…)

Conservatism, Democrats, Elections, Feminism, Gender, libertarianism, Media, Politics, Republicans, War

Finding a conservative instinct in a “conservative” female writer is near impossible. Kathleen Parker, the yin to neoconservative David Brooks’ yang, zeros in on the essence of State Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican vying with Attorney General Martha Coakley to fill Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts.

The second most important thing to Parker, as noted in her column about the candidate who is fast gaining on the Coakley character, is that, “He’s a Mr. Mom to his busy wife, a Boston TV news reporter.” Like most “conservative” women, Parker makes the candidate’s feminist and family bona fides front-and-center.

But we’re not here discussing the mediocrity of Parker’s saccharine sweet, gender-specific, unremarkable prose, but the banality of the “JFK Republican,” Scott Brown. Basically Brown likes senseless war more than futile welfare.

Brown’s wishy-washy platform notwithstanding, you don’t need CNN to tell you that, “A GOP victory in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts could give Senate Republicans enough votes to block Obama’s health care plan. It also could shatter assumptions about the competitiveness of politics in the progressive Northeast.”

Brown has opened up a lead of 4 percentage points.

According to the Suffolk/7 News survey, Brown is grabbing 65 percent of independent voters, with three in 10 pulling for Coakley. And 17 percent of Democrats questioned said they’re supporting Brown.
If Brown pulls an upset and defeats Coakley, the Democrats will lose their 60-seat filibuster-proof coalition in the Senate. The shift could threaten the party’s priorities on health care and a range of other issues.

Brown’s election could mean the defeat of Obama’s healthcare bill, and that’s a good thing.

Otherwise, it’s all more musical chairs between the mamzers.

Update I (Jan. 18): If he wins, and it looks like he will, Brown will be on the next flight to DC to cast a vote in the Senate to kill the bill. As I understand it, Brown does not need to await confirmation to vote. His vote will be perfectly legal. If Democrats pull any procedural mischief, there will be riots.

The most liberal, Democrat-favoring state in the country—I believe Massachusetts has not elected a Republican to the Senate since the late 1970s—is rejecting Obama’s policies, or at least some of them.

This is a turning point in current Democrat-Republican dispensation. It’s a serious blow to blowhard Barack and a kick in the pants to Ted Kennedy, his “legacy” and possy. Some overall gains for liberty may result, although homeostasis within the duopoly will ultimately be restored.

Remember, “The Democratic and Republican parties each operates as a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging in perpetuity from the one entity to the other.”

Update II (Jan. 19): Not a peep from the media about this gentleman. Thanks to Myron for introducing Joe Kennedy, an independent candidate.

I skimmed his short platform. Kennedy’s a patriot. A tad weak on immigration, as he dares to speak only of the illegal kind, and cleaves to the, “We are a nation of immigrants” mantra. Still, Kennedy is better than most any establishment Republican.

Update III: Michelle Malkin clobbers David Frum in a post on Brown: “Brown has run on the core Tea Party issues of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and a strong national defense, while appealing to a broader swath of voters by emphasizing integrity, independence, and willingness to stand up to machine politics.” Read the complete post for the Frum bits.

Update IV: From Salon’s Joan Walsh, who has the aura of a wound-up, puritanical Martha Coakley, to Brother Eugene Robinson of the WaPo; to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and the pretty, empty-headed Norah O’Donnell—the malpracticing media seems intractably unwilling to apply analytical acid to what’s unfolding in Massachusetts.

In Obama’s election, the Left saw a heavenly celestial alignment of the political stars. The media had been blessed at last with a son. “For Unto Us A Son is Born,” blah, blah. In the near dethroning of a Democrat in the liberal miasma that is Massachusetts, the ponces above see only logistical and tactical missteps.

The latest from Fox News: “Republican Scott Brown has taken the early lead in the Massachusetts special election, an unexpectedly competitive contest that could have significant implications for President Obama’s agenda in Washington.”

Update V: BROWN HAS WON. Associated Press:

In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

Coakley has conceded.

Update VI: Want proof that Olby is bonkers? Here is what the MSNBC host said of the center-right, senator elect from Massachusetts:

“In Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees.’
— Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC’s Countdown, in a virulent rant against the Massachusetts candidate”

Michele Malkin: “… there are more long faces at MSNBC than at an aardvark convention.”

Here’s an image courtesy of Chris Matthews PR:

Update VII: Joan Walsh pleads, under the guise of an impartial postmortem: “this is a referendum on Coakley’s campaign, not on President Obama (thought I’ll get to him later.) She blew it … Coakley didn’t lose because of doubts about the health care reform bill…”

That’s settled, then. If Dems run good campaigns, they should be alright.

Walsh’s woman’s wiles tell her that this Republican victory in Massachusetts, achieved because the candidate rode a populist, tea-bag wave, has nothing to do with Democratic overreach. “In fact,” she assures her readers, “the problem has been under-reaching, and failing to deliver on campaign promises. But it’s going to take a lot of work on Obama’s part to bring those two poles within his party together. Exactly a year after his inauguration, it’s time for Obama to lead.”

Blessed be the boobs for they have inherited the earth.

Note Walsh’s dark demands that “agendas” be delivered on by hook or by crook.

The winner, Brown, disagrees. Campaigning “from the Berkshires to Boston, from Springfield to Cape Cod,” the voters of the Commonwealth told him they did “not want the trillion-dollar health care bill that is being forced on the American people.”

Odd that. (Even odder was Brown’s smarmy allusions, in his victory speech, to playing basketball with the president. Did you get the impression that the Republicans’ golden boy was looking forward to hobnobbing in high places? That disturbed me. The liberals, on the other hand, didn’t appreciate his crass peddling of his daughters as “available.” Cheap and inappropriate, that’s for sure.)

Update VIII: A good summery of the diabolical options Dems have been weighing, vis-a-vis the health care bill, soon to be laid to rest (we hope).

Update IX (Jan. 20): I’m hanging at Salon for a bit. Sometimes one just has to experience, or endure, a full frontal of the stuff. You tend to forget how repulsive the beltway liberal really is. Another insight into the seismic dethroning of Dems in Massachusetts courtesy of the Salon scribblers: “Massachusetts is filled with sexist voters.”