The word has come down from the leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) have sent a message: “We are not amused.”

Or was it “let them eat cake”?

Lots of ink and bandwidth have been expended on those rowdy town hall protesters. As PJTV’s Steven Crowder illustrated, most aren’t that angry. But those whose tempers are flaring are igniting the type of faux outrage that distracts from the real issues underlying the ObamaCare boondoggle.

Relatively little press has focused on angry Democrats like Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Rep. David Scott (D-GA) losing their cool and shouting at constituents. Nor is the media debating whether the many Democrats dodging town halls can take the heat.

The focus is on the citizens, who are mostly amateurs in the area of public dialogue.

I don’t condone incivility of tone, but neither will I join in this media-induced hand-wringing over it. Most of the people who attend town halls aren’t reading this column. They don’t view themselves as part of a cause. They’re speaking for themselves, for perhaps the first time.

No one can control them and it’s foolhardy to try.

Speaker Pelosi calls those who are rude at town halls un-American. Her statement ignores how ordinary Americans typically behave. Those of us who have worked customer service know well that many Americans get quite nasty when things go wrong. Those who are getting out of hand at town halls have likely gotten out of hand over not getting tomatoes on their salad.

But it never occurred to me to tell a customer irate about his computer warranty that he was being un-American.

Read the rest here.

Balmer and Microsoft threaten to leave U.S. over tax increase.

Carbon tax endagering lives in Canada. (Hat Tip: Don Surber.)

Second Amendment Update from Gun Watch.

Former Tiller employee now pro-life activist.

Wounded soldier: I like defending this country.

Where Americans aren’t cutting back.

Music by Chrid Godber via the Podsafe Music Network.

Click here to download.

The Obama report card

Why Obama blew the visit with the British Prime Minister.  (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

The overpriced reset button. (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

Mission accomplished: Obama doubles Limbaugh’s audience.  (Hat Tip: Reformed Chicks Babbling.)

Obama promises card check will pass. (Hat Tip: Club for Growth.)

Obama proposes contract reform.

Good news: Obama Administration backs off on DC Vouchers a little bit.  (Hat Tip: Instapundit.)

McCain, Feingold, Ryan propose Line Item veto. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

How far to the left is Obama’s budget?

Obama’s anti-Israel head of the National Intelligence Council. (Hat Tip: Clayton Cramer.)

It Takes One to know one: Tim Geithner declares war on tax cheats.

A Brownback betrayal.

Coming to America soon: Life prolonging anti-cancer drugs banned in Great Britain. (Hat Tip: Don Surber.)

Can Conservatives implement rules for radicals?

Protecting incompetence: what unions are good for. (Hat Tip: Right Wing News.)

A doctor helps the uninsured get health care and faces the consequences from the government.

Second Amendment update from Gun Watch.

Music by: Three in the Same via the Podsafe Music Network.

Click here to listen, click here to download.

Trackposted to Nuke’s, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Rosemary’s Thoughts, third world county, Investorblogger Dot Com, Woman Honor Thyself, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Is Rush Limbaugh hurting the Republican Party? Some within the GOP allege that Rush turns people off to the party and is conservatism’s toxic asset. The Democratic Party, in the absence of any Republican power in Washington to attack, is taking aim at Limbaugh.

Chairman Michael Steele stepped into the middle of this battle by telling CNN’s D.L. Hugely that Rush’s was “incendiary” and “ugly.”

Steele has since apologized and clarified: “My intent was not to go after Rush — I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh. … I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

This came after Limbaugh responded to Steele’s statements with a verbal smackdown worthy of the WWF. While some may question the tone of Rush’s response, the war on Rush needs to be understood. It’s not just as an assault on a talk show host, but an attack on the movement conservatives who value his opinions. In essence, the war on Rush is a proxy war on movement conservatives, and Steele stepped in on the wrong side before correcting himself.

Steele’s interview does raise important questions. Many, including D.L. Hugely and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, have credited Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republicans. Many conservatives would agree.

Being leader of the conservative movement isn’t Limbaugh’s fault, doing, or even his goal. What it is, ultimately, is a reproach on Republican leadership at all levels.

Read the rest of the piece here.

My grandmother helped shape my worldview. She used to tell my brother and me, “We’re sending you out into the world. You’re going to meet four types of people – hold-outs, sold-outs, drop-outs and all-outs.”

The hold-outs, she said, are the self-doubters – they always have low expectations. The sold-outs would rather exploit humanity than enhance it. The drop-outs don’t understand that the human condition, the human struggle, is sometimes painful. They don’t understand that you have to go through the thunder and the lightning and the clouds and the overcast days to reach the sunshine. So they find an escape, whether it’s alcoholism, drug addiction or watching soap operas all day.

The all-outs, she said, are just ordinary folk who give you 100 percent. They’re not sprinters, but long-distance runners.

In these times, conservatives definitely some all-outs.

The Democratic Party resonates on the Internet because it resonates in pop culture. The Democratic Party resonates in pop culture because it has been committed to dominating it for over a generation…

The spectacular Will.I.Am song and video, “Yes We Can,” could not be duplicated by Republicans if T. Boone Pickens airdropped his fortune on the RNC headquarters.

The Mac versus PC advertising campaign best sums up the stark divide. Only it’s much worse.

What the Republican Party needs to do now is figure out how to make up for 40 years of ignoring the net effect of film, television and music, and the youth culture that goes along with it. When will the people who make the big decisions and write the big checks realize the AM radio band is not enough?

As I’ve written and stated many times, college Republicans and other young conservative activists need to go Hollywood – in mind, spirit and even in location.

I don’t know if it’s quite as bleak as Breitbart says, but it is a challenge for conservatives. Here’s the deal. It seems that most of the people leading on the right are so left-brained towards fields like finance, business, or government that they can’t even grasp the idea of cultural productions as anything more than diversions.

When in reality, culture really turns the wheel of society and in fact is often far out front of government. Culture defines how many people think about issues. Something as simple as who the good guys and who the bad guys are can move people’s views of the world.

Of course, works of culture need not be about specific topics. One example of this if Harrison Ford’s 1993 Hit “The Fugitive.” The plot: A doctor is wrongfully accused and convicted of the murder of his wife. He escape and seeks to clear his name. It was based on a 1960s TV Show.  In the 1960s show, the villain was a one-armed man, a simple thug who did the crime. *spoiler warning ahead*

But we couldn’t have that in 1993. The source of villainy was an evil corporation that wanted to get their heart drug approved by the FDA even though it caused liver problems, because we all know it’s better to make a few hundred million in sales and then get hit by a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit when someone else figures out the problem.

And how did Deputy U.S. Marshall Samuel Gerard figure out the company was behind it. He quoted it’s Market CAP of several billion dollars and said, ”It’s a monster.”

Yes, any corporation with a larget Market CAP is a criminal enterprise ready to kill you and/or frame you for murder in order to kill other Americans because of their insatiable greed. Thus, to many Americans, if you say, “My name is Bob, I work for a Fortune 500 company…” they’ll think, “Must be a soulless robot.”  

Now, if conservatives are smart, we’ll see more films that feature labor unions as the bad guys. Such an effort would produce a situation where people would think, “So you work for the mafia?” when they introduce themselves as a leader of a union.

While my fellow conservatives may look at me as if I’m from another planet when I mention that I write Science Fiction, my cultural efforts will continue as they matter more long-term than my political ones.

Politics shouldn’t be about religious beliefs.

Which is funny because earlier in the same post as an argument for a secularist witch hunt on Governor Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy, Dave G pleaded us for stop persecuting the poor beleaguered Trigg Truthers and long-distance parenting judges because they were only concerned about how this might effect the Presidency:

It does mean that we wondered whether Bristol Palin becoming pregnant despite the aforementioned consequences was the result of a worldview held by the Palins that included such things as an opposition to contraception, a belief that higher education wasn’t important for women, etc, beliefs that could and would have an impact on public policy if Sarah Palin at any point became President of the United States.

It has been argued that higher education is a waste for the 46% who end up dropping out, regardless of gender, but that’s neither here nor there. It seems to me that what Dave G is arguing is that there are two particularly disturbing potential religious beliefs that they feared the Palin family held:

1. Opposition to Contraception
2. Belief that a woman can be fulfilled without a 4-year degree.

Palin has been clear that she’s not opposed to contraception. She hasn’t said anything specifically about higher education, but like most people with any experience, she probably knows folks without four year degrees who live successful, happy lives. 

But this begs a question, “What exactly does this have to do with being President of the United States?” It has nothing to do with national security, almost nothing to do with fiscal policy, and unless you want to suggest that the Presidency is going to be a bully pulpit for a, “Don’t stay in school, don’t use contraception message,” it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with social policy.

So from what I’m understanding from Dave G the statement honestly needs revised:

 ”Politics shouldn’t be about religious beliefs unless I want it to be..”

A little bit of a confusing standard. So what is the proper role of religion in politics?

I think there are many answers to what is ultimately a philosophical question. Some good answers can be found in how the Founding Fathers came down on the issue.

One thing that’s clear is that the Founding Fathers were not in favor of imposing the beliefs of a specific religious denomination on the country or of making people pay for religion. Even when the Founders imposed “Sabbath breaking” laws in the States, it was enforcing a consensus belief in a Sunday Sabbath held by the vast majority of the state’s religious adherents.

However, this wasn’t to say they held religion with contempt or viewed it as somewhat irrelevant to every day life. In Washington’s farewell address, he declares:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them.

In the view of George Washington, if someone actively seeks to undermine religion ala Christopher Hitchens if you try and subvert religion in the life of the nation, because of the incumbent blessings that come with it. This does not include some who merely disbelieves, but there’s a difference between disbelieving and undermining. 

A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Washington did not say as some have suggested that personal morality cannot be obtained apart from religion, rather that such an idea should be weighed with caution. What may be possible for the individual is not possible for a society.

Of course, post-modernists get away from this argument by constantly defining deviancy down. Good and moral are whatever you happen to feel they are at a given moment in time, so therefore everyone (with a few exceptions) are good and moral because they feel they are and society is perfectly fine. We define dysfunction as normality and so it is normal, okay, and acceptable.

However, for those who have studied history, they see in our nation the same signs of decline that were noted at the fall of Ancient Rome. The decline of virtue and not just the rise of, but the glorification of vice is a greater threat to our nation than terrorism or fiscal failure. The debasement of marriage, traditional family, manhood, womanhood, and the sanctity of human life will undermine any basis for human freedom.

Unconstrained by an overriding moral code, society descends into chaos, the costs of government skyrockets. As soft-hearted charity declines, soft-headed socialism takes it place. The less we can trust people, the more we must fear them, and the more they must be controlled.

Children who come from broken homes are more likely to end up in prison or on welfare. That means more government.  

If we cannot be trusted with our money…government will take more of it.

If we cannot be trusted our guns…government will take them.

If we cannot be trusted to be honest and fair in our business…government will regulate us to make us behave.

The increase in government is tied to the moral failure of a people-the failure to govern themselves. Washington and the founders understood this and that religion was ultimately a necessary support. However, they did not prescribe a specific dogma, creed, doctrine, or church. It was ultimately their belief that people should be free to worship God as they choose. 

There was no specific religion imposed, but the Founding Fathers to a man believed in what I would call an American Theology that believed several things about God that were key to their worldview:

1) God is the source and guarantor of legitimate rights. The Founding Fathers declared that we were endowed with inalienable rights by our Creator, and that among these rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Also in the same declarations they appealed “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” God is both the source of rights and is the ground to which to protect and defend rights. It also ultimately leads us to understand that our rights do not come from Government, but from the hand of God, and therefore government cannot rightfully take them away.

2)  One of the least religious founders, Ben Franklin declared at the Constitutional Convention, “God governs in the affairs of men.” Franklin and the rest of the founders understood simply put that there was a God and they weren’t Him.

3) God answers prayers. Not only is the God of the Founding Fathers ruling. He actually cares and is responsive. Again quoting Franklin at the Constitutional Convention, he stated, “In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.-Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity.”

The God the Founding Fathers believed in was not distant, and was involved in the affairs of mankind,  responsive to the prayers and needs of the nation.

4) God is Just. This can be a comforting thought when you’re right. In the Declaration appealing to Nature’s God to suggest a violation of Natural Law was the key element of the Founder’s argument for Independence. Thomas Paine, who would later write a pamphlet denouncing Christianity understood that a belief in God’s justice was key to rallying the troops. In the American Crisis, Paine writes:

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils;

Of course, the idea that God is justice is not very comforting when you realize you are in the wrong. Thomas Jefferson on slavery wrote:

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference!

Jefferson did not have the plastic view of God as the Big USA cheerleader in the sky, but as ultimate justice that would mete out a reward for those who practiced injustice.

Ultimately, these views of God coupled with the belief that wide-spread private religion was necessary to public morality led to a policy of government that while favoring no religion over another was friendly to all faiths, particularly the Christian ones. Government did not hinder the work of religion or become the secular police until the last half of the 20th Century.

I think the proper role of religion in politics is returning once again to recognize basic truths about the importance of recognizing God as the source of our rights, and fighting for justice for the unborn. I don’t think that a religious denomination has the right to impose its own religious standards on society (examples: Evangelical denominations that object to drinking, Mormons who object to Caffiene, or Muslims who object to pork.). However, the fact that people are motivated in part by religion should not exclude them from the public debate. And indeed, the most prominent issues to occur as socially conservative issues include a wide-base of support. You can find Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Muslims, and Jews who support the pro-life cause, believe in the sanctity of Marriage, and support public displays that acknowledge the nation’s religious heritage. 

So, a good New Years’ resolution for our friends in the faithless community is to get over their Theophobia and embrace a more common sense stance on religion in society.  

The report is ironic, as if it was from another time that seems long ago, when the petty nickel and dime conniving politicians mattered, or when Tom Coburn was a paragon of fiscal conservatism.

I try not to be harsh, and I can’t advocate throwing Coburn under the bus, but I find myself unable to view him in the same light as I once did. My reason: one vote: for a $700 billion bailout of the financial sector.
I can eventually forgive that vote, or will try. But Coburn’s complaining about the penny anny stuff in Washington strikes me as hypocritical. The $700 billion bailout money could provide homeless people in Ohio voice mail for 46.7 million years, or could be used to paint more than 116 million murals.

This past year has been a difficult one for conservatives. I never imagined it would end with me angry at Tom Coburn. The top movie of 2008 was the Batman sequel, “The Dark Night,” and it’s a movie this situation relates to.

For those who didn’t see the movie, this may come as somewhat of a spoiler. For those who did, the statement will be controversial. In the Dark Knight, the Joker won. The Joker’s goal, if you could call it that, wasn’t the theft of money, or the killing of hundreds, it was simply the creation of moral anarchy. By the end of the movie, the Joker’s efforts had paid off. Each of the three “good guys”: Commissioner Gordon, Batman, and District Attorney Harvey Dent, had clearly become compromised.

Likewise, moral confusion seems to be the order of the day in the auto bailout. This confusion is best summed up by George W. Bush’s statement, “I abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” Yes, that is a direct quote.

The taint is everywhere in Congress. Congressman John Campbell (R-Ca.), who like Coburn is a well-known anti-pork crusader, voted yes on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), aka the $700 billion bailout, and present on the auto bailout. Congressman stalwart John Shadegg (R-AZ), and conservative Tom Tancredo (R-Co.) also supported TARP.

Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mi.) thundered on the floor of the house, arguing that the federal treasury should not be raided, and that the TARP bailout undermined our liberty. Said McCotter, “In the Bolshevik Revolution, the slogan was ‘Peace, land, and bread.’ Today, you are being asked to choose between bread and freedom. I suggest the people on Main Street have said they prefer their freedom, and I am with them.”

McCotter’s reaction to President Bush’s auto bailout, which was likely in violation of the terms of the original TARP legislation? “I sincerely thank [President Bush] for his decisive action in this dire time for our community and the auto industry.” Apparently McCotter has switched to the side of land and bread.

Unlike in the Dark Knight, some heroes have emerged uncompromised in the face of this insanity. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC.) said “no” to both bailouts, as did Congressman Mike Pence (R-In.) Some people who conservatives rarely counted as heroes, such as Senator Richard Shelby (R-Al.), who was named porker of the month earlier this year by Citizens Against Government Waste, led on the issue of opposing bailouts.

Yet, at the end of the day, the liberal Jokers on Capitol Hill won the day. They’ve created fiscal anarchy on the right. The conservative arguments against government intervention in other areas of life have been smashed to bits by conservatives supporting government intervention. Liberals have been attacking Republicans who supported TARP, but oppose bailing out the auto industry as hypocrites who think banks are worthy of being bailed out, but blue collar workers aren’t. And they’ve got a point.

President Bush and Senator McCain put us in the business of picking winners and losers. The Democrats will argue, “If Citibank and AIG can be winners, why not you? Why are we spending money to bailout these clowns while millions of Americans don’t have health care?” Defining yourself as the party of limited government is great. Defining yourself as the party that will only use big government to help the rich is suicidal.

And how can we hold the new president to following the rule of law when this president has turned a program that was supposed to purchase troubled securities into a program that bought stocks in not only troubled banks, but not so troubled banks, and finally into a program that purchases stock in troubled carmakers (never mind that one of the TARP bill’s chief sponsors has said flat out that Bush has no right to do this.)

Our conservative movement is fractured, fragmented, and undermined through the actions of its leaders. A sledgehammer has been taken to our most sacrosanct economic principles. And you can’t help but feel that somewhere a demented clown is smiling. 

I was saddened to learn that at a time of national trial, when a president-elect is preparing to take office in the midst of the worst financial crisis in over seventy years, that the Republican National Committee is engaged in the sort of negative, attack politics that the voters rejected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles.

The recent web advertisement, “Questions Remain,” is a destructive distraction. Clearly, we should insist that all taped communications regarding the Senate seat should be made public. However, that should be a matter of public policy, not an excuse for political attack.

In a time when America is facing real challenges, Republicans should be working to help the incoming President succeed in meeting them, regardless of his Party.

From now until the inaugural, Republicans should be offering to help the President-elect prepare to take office.

I hate to say this, but Newt misses the role of the RNC. The RNC is not about policy or about governing, it’s about politics and winning elections. The RNC is going to be as involved in Obama’s tradition as the DNC was in Ronald Reagan’s. And honestly, how much help does the President-elect need to take office?

The RNC’s job is to make the case for the party, to challenge the President and this ad raises legitimate questions:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2M1zMaZPmI[/youtube]

Obama has been less than forthcoming on this issue. And the fact is that somebody who he helped elect Governor has fallen into this type of scandal is relevant and it’s this type of Chicago connection that was ignored by the media during the campaign.

While one could argue the ad is too partisan, there’s another level to the politics here, because Mike Duncan is running for re-election as RNC Chairman.  He wants to appear tough and ready to fight. If Duncan and the RNC weren’t out doing this, they’d have a chorus of critics calling him listless and out of it. The RNC is being partisan-that’s it’s job. Where Newt does get it right is the second half of his letter to Duncan:

Furthermore, once President Obama takes office, Republicans should be eager to work with him when he is right, and, when he is wrong, offer a better solution, instead of just opposing him.

This is the only way the Republican Party will become known as the “better solutions” party, not just an opposition party. And this is the only way Republicans will ever regain the trust of the voters to return to the majority.

Bingo.

The RNC has got to take shots at the administration and they’ve got to call out unethical behavior and release press releases, but come the 2010 elections, there had better be something resembling a real agenda out there that people can latch onto.

The 2002 Mid-terms saw the Democrats lose ground, including their tenuous 50-49-1 Senate Majority. The Democrats blamed their loss on the fact that they didn’t get their message out. Truth is: They had no message.

The, “count on the other side being unethical, stupid, and incompetent” school of winning election is a loser. You either come with a message as to how to make the country better or you’re going to be years waiting for enough supply of stupid to build up to blow your opponents out of power.

Of course, the RNC isn’t the source for exciting new ideas.  That will come from Congressional leadership which isn’t leaving me terribly optomistic at the moment.

• Chuck Yob, the Republican National Committeeman from Michigan had been a rumored candidate from the RNC Chairman against fellow Michiganer Saul Anuzis. Yob is endorsing Ken Blackwell.  This is a pretty firm public slap to Anuzis and a boost to Blackwell. (Hat Tip: Campaign Spot.)
• South Carolina Party Chairman Katon Dawson picked up the endorsement of Dr. Ada Fischer, the Republican National Committeewoman from North Carolina and one of three African-American members of the Republican Nation Committee. Glenn McCall, another African American member of the RNC from South Carolina has prasied Dawson’s and defended Dawson on belonging to a country club that did not accept minorities:

A few months ago, a local newspaper wrote an article about a country club where Katon was a member. The article pointed out that the club did not have any minority members. There was some confusion about whether or not it was club policy or a longstanding deed that prohibited minority members — none of that really matters. What matters is this: Katon Dawson tried to change the club’s practices to allow minority members. When he realized that things were not likely to change, Katon resigned his membership.

Sadly, Katon’s opponents are trying to use the fact that he was a member of this country club to disqualify him from serving as RNC Chair.

It shouldn’t. I believe it won’t.

I see what Katon did as evidence of his commitment to including and involving people from all walks of life and all races. Katon took a stand for what was right. He stood up in front of his friends at the club and told them what they were doing was wrong, and when they refused to change, he decided to leave. I’m not saying that Katon deserves a medal for the courage he showed that day, but I do think this one incident revealed the depths of Katon’s personal commitment to inclusion.

 McCall was recruited into the GOP and mentored by Dawson. In addition, South Carolina elected its first Black Republican in modern times under Dawson as well as an Indian-American State Representative. Dawson’s record is sound and with McCall as a character witness, I don’t think the unfortunate country club incident will present a problem.

One thing people need to understand is the election of RNC Chairman will require a majority vote, which means this race will shrink to a top two afther a few ballots. I think Saul Anuzis and Mike Duncan will draw from the same pool of RNC Members who are going to be more establishment-minded, while Saltsman, Dawson, and Blackwell will draw more conservative support. Michael Steele will probably draw some support from both sides. My personal hope is that the winner be from the conservative pod.

Obama shows liberals’ lack of originality. (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

With Evangelical leaders like this…

Rangel funneled money to son for lousy websites. (Hat Tip: Hot Air.)

Teachers sues the Ohio Education Association (OEA)

Judicial ruling attempts to foist assisted suicide on Montana.

In the Netherlands, what happened to Libertarian Paradise? (Hat Tip: Don Surber.)

The proper use of guns highlighted in our Second Amendment Update.

Community activists helping squatters take over other people’s homes. (Hat Tip: Right Wing News.)

Super Abstinent couple enjoys a sweet wedding  (Hat Tip: Jill Stanek.)

A homeschooled success in Texas.

A Christmas wish answered: a Sergeant returns home.  (Hat Tip: Reformed Chicks Babbling.)

Secret Santas help the needy.

Music by Allison Crowe and Darrel Smith via the Podsafe Music Network.

Click here to listen, click here to download.

Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Democrat=Socialist, A Newt One, Conservative Cat, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Instead, voters rejected the fact that while Republicans have campaigned on the conservative themes of lower taxes, less government and more freedom, they have consistently failed to govern that way. Americans didn’t turn away from conservatism, they instead turned away from many who faked it…

Well said, and then Sanford lays out three principles for rebuilding the party. The first is key:

First, let’s go back to the principle of saying what you mean and meaning what you say. A political party is much like a brand, and brands thrive or wither based on how consistently they deliver on what they promise. Along those same lines, it’s important for brands to stick to their knitting. If John Deere’s tractor sales are declining, they don’t say, “Tell you what, let’s make cars and airplanes, too.” Instead, they focus on producing better tractors.

I make that point because there’s a real temptation in Republican circles right now to try and be all things to all people. We tried that already — it was called “compassionate conservatism,” and it got us nowhere

Emphasis mine. Sanford’s other principles include a loyalty to ideas and not individuals, and looking to the states and not to Washington for leadership and solutions. Good stuff. It’s also clear that Sanford is taking his job as Chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association seriously, heaping praise on Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Rick Perry, and Bobby Jindal.

As chairman of the RGA, Sanford may be the highest ranking Republican in America to have some inkling as to why the party lost. He’s definitely someone to watch and listen to the next few years.

He wrote, “politics is too corrupt and distorted an arena for Christians to use to enact social change.” That wasn’t this year. That was 1998. Thomas co-wrote, “Blinded by Might” declaring the Religious Right dead. 25 years after Roe v. Wade had been passed there was still abortion around. And so in 1998, Mr. Thomas told religious conservatives the same thing he would have told Blacks in 1922, after the same number of years since Plessy v. Ferguson, “Pack it in.”

Then, there was the 2004 election and the Values Voters leading the Republicans to victory.  Now, in 2008, the Religious Right is dead again. Will Mr. Thomas once again be provied a poor coroner?

It seems to me that Thomas is part of a group of columnists that don’t really have original thoughts, they just use current events to argue what they always believed anyway.

Dennis Mansfield included an approximate of a transcript of a conversation he had with his daughter. I’m not going to get into a huge argument with the Mansfields and their conversation.

But he suggests a couple things. First, his daughter suggested that pro-life laws “only made the sides clearer.” This isn’t true. Pro-life laws have been proven to reduce abortion with parental consent laws leading to a 16% decline in abortions, and informed consent leading to a 10% decline.

My other comment is that it seems Dennis is creating false dichotomies. Apparently, We can advocate for pro-life laws OR we  can provide help to women in crisis pregnancies. We can be loving OR we can be just. You can be involved in politics OR you can be a decent loving Christian.  

I appreciate Dennis’ work in our community on behalf of prisoners. It’s excellent and I’m happy for him as he truly loves it.

Yet, I do wonder he chooses to take subtle digs at people who feel another calling?

But some of my colleagues in the conservative blogosphere aren’t feeling it. Bob Owens over at Confederate Yankee writes:

Yes, I saw your messages. Dozens and dozens of them. How wonderful that you want to reach out now, after the last eight years.

You do remember the last eight years, right?

You lost in Florida. Remember how you reacted? “Selected, not elected,” and “Not my President” were the order of the day. But that was just the beginning. You kept nursing your grudge, cultivating it, stocking it, and formed insular, community-based realities to echo and increase your hysteria…

And so it is very obvious that you want us to buy into his Presidency not because you want us to share his great visions of hope and change and unicorns, but because you’ve suddenly realized what kind of disaster you put into the White House. You don’t want to share success; you want cover when it all comes apart.

So enjoy your two years of unquestioned power, 52. We’ll see you at the midterms, and see if you’re still smiling and reaching out when it isn’t so self-serving.

Bob, I love you like a brother who I’ve never met and link to twice a year, but have you seen some of the kids in this montage?  Some of them look like they were 11 in 2000, if that.

I have news. Not everybody who voted for Barack Obama was in the streets screaming bloody murder about Florida. Political activists are a small slice of the population. The Majority of this country takes a passing interest in politics, with time spent on the subject being measured in minutes or hours, not days like for your average political blogger.

You average “52″ voter isn’t rabid about their politics. They aren’t enemies. Heck, they aren’t even our opponents.  Many of these folks will go on to vote Republican. Many are open to persuasion. Our problem is that for too long we haven’t even bothered with an argument, and our current administration hasn’t helped.

While I’m not buying into this administration, I will buy into the concept of respectful debate and engagement. And I appreciate the thought behind the gesture.

 If Obama wins, I resolve not to be bitter and angry. If Obama wins, I am not going to move anywhere else. (While admitting that unlike liberals with their utopian dreams of Canada and Europe, there really is nowhere else for me to go.)…

There are going to be things that make me sad if Obama wins, very probably things that break my heart. I make no secret of the fact that I believe much of his agenda, particularly the social agenda Obama stands for, is evil. Not the gleeful hand-wringing evil of movie villains or the unambiguous tyrannical evil of your average despot, but the tragic evil of misguided good intentions, which is a thousand times more dangerous and pervasive than either of the first two…

But if Obama wins, ironically, I feel I will have great hope — not because of him, but in spite of him. Never does the light grow more than when darkness is ascendant. Whether in two years, four years, eight years, or twelve years, this too shall pass. In the meantime, I will work with every talent God has given me, to raise up a standard against the flood loosed on the world by principalities and powers. If the light is going to win this time, or any time…a lot has to change about the way we do things. I believe this is my vocation. I don’t know all the “hows” yet, but the “why” is because I love my country, and that’s reason enough.

Well said and important given the amount of, “It’s all over if Obama wins” garbage out there.

The Conservative grassroots loves Sarah Palin, and anti-Palin right wing pundits are finding that pundits are expendable, admired leaders are not. Angry e-mails hit their inbox, leaving conservative elites shell-shocked. They’ve been more used to getting no e-mails at all or intellectual quibbles, as well as an occassional intellectual ego trip. Instead they’re deluged by angry and betrayed grassroots conservatives.

Over the past few days, these conservative pundits have been posting complaints. David Frum posted a particularly whiny post on Monday, and Rob Dreher has been in the throes of defending anti-Palin elitism for some time. Now comes Ross Douthat to explain why the grassroots needs elites:

Here’s the thing: The Republican Party will be a populist party going forward, or it won’t be a party at all. But the more populist it becomes – the more figures like Palin and Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty replace the blue-blazer Republicans of yore – the more it needs an elite capable of preventing it from spinning away into anti-intellectualism, hidebound dogmatism, and pure folly.

It’s good to know that we’ve got Ross Douthat around to save us from ourselves. By the way, George W. Bush has had quite a few elites, in and around his administration. How well has this worked out in the “Elites save the world” view?

Yes, sometimes these elites are snobbish and insidery, overly impressed with credentials, overly concerned about what their liberal pals think, overly willing to treat their party’s base as an embarrassment. Sometimes the base is right and the elites are wrong. Sometimes you need a better class of elite entirely. But you still need them, and you need candidates who listen to them.

So you might think that David Brooks is too taken with Barack Obama’s facility for Reinhold Niebuhr-related jaw-jaw, and too quick to attack conservatives who don’t share his views on immigration, say, or the bailout. But if you want Sarah Palin as your standard-bearer, you need a Brooks, or someone like him, at the table when her speeches are being written and her policy positions are being hashed out.

But do you need to read Brooks, particularly as one of the New York Times’ token conservatives? Yes, you need advisers, and from a wide variety of sources. Just because Sarah Palin needs advisers, doesn’t obligate conservatives to eagerly read every word written by columnists who are full of themselves.

You need elites, and you especially need elites who work and live outside the conservative cocoon, and who have a sense of how to talk to people who aren’t already persuaded that a vote for Obama is a vote for socialism and surrender. The more populist your party, in fact, the smarter it needs to get – at wooing swing voters, and talking intelligently about policy questions, and yes, even at charming the liberal media – because you know the elites on the other side won’t cut it any slack.

And now the most hilarious part of this piece where Douthat argues for op-ed columnists as the evangelist of conservatism. Has anyone became a Republican or a Conservative as a result of reading David Brooks? Brooks has figured out how to earn his keep and acclaim: attacking conservatives, lionizing liberals.

In praising the piece, Rob Dreher adds:

 You cannot have a healthy conservative movement, or a healthy conservative party, when the only thing its members read are the collected works of Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity et alia, and they are only conversant in the talk-radio vernacular.

Thank you, it’s good to have some as edu-nacated as Mr. Dreher to help us poor ignorant folks read. Though, for my part, I’ve read through the Federalist Papers, the diaries of John Quincy Adams, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and a lot of other intellectual fluff. While I’ve listened to Hannity a few times, I’ve read more of George Washington that I ever have Sean Hannity.

Of course, Douthat and Dreher’s larger argument is somewhat of a straw man (I know, as a non-elite, I’m not supposed to know what that is.) If the argument being made were somehow Maoist, “Kill all the right-wing intellectuals.” Then, perhaps, they’d have a point. However, there are many conservatives who are thrilled with Palin: educated folks who are well-spoken and well-read such as Newt Gingrich, who used to be a history professor. Thomas Sowell has been positive on Palin. I’d not consider Victor Davis Hanson, Mark Steyn, or most of the columnists and pundits on the right to be of lesser caliber to those who have attacked Palin.

The pretention of the anti-Palin elites is that they speak from a position of exalted intellectual purity, when their self-importance has become their prime principle.

This isn’t news to anyone — or it shouldn’t be. It’s been going on for years, now. But the opportunity inherent in this monumental shift in the status quo is slipping away from those for whom it holds the greatest potential. How long have conservatives, both religious and secular, lamented that the tools of mass communication were largely inaccessible to them, being hopelessly entangled in the tentacles of the liberal media? How long have conservatives winced or curled a lip in disgust at the hundreds of little jabs against them, the countless ill-informed jokes at their expense, which left wing writers have shoehorned into every script for every TV show and film made since the 1970s? How long have they grumbled against the lack of representation among journalists, the lack of portrayals in entertainment as anything but ignorant, hateful stereotypes, straw men eagerly fashioned by the creative left and just as eagerly knocked down? The left would have you believe that conservatives are rare in the media simply because creative conservatives are rare, or even non-existent. Oh, they will grudgingly acknowledge them in Country and Christian music, though they will be just as quick to label those fields as derivative and banal by comparison to those where liberals dominate. Maybe they’re right — you’d be hard pressed to produce much to contradict them. And before you blame the left-wing establishment, try to remember that we are not meant to blame others for our problems. “Our Job,” as Joel Surnow of ‘24‘ fame puts it, “is not to whine. That’s their job. Our job is succeed despite the adversity.” So, are we? It sure doesn’t look like it. I’d like to be able to tell you that we are. I’d love to tell you that we’re insurgent in every field, and the left-wing ivory towers are coming down. But that’s not what’s happening.

What’s happening now, when the old media that’s been suckling the left-wing message machine since before most of us were born is at it’s weakest, is that we’re still acting like nothing has changed. Young conservatives don’t see themselves as potential actors, producers, directors, animators, artists, or journalists. Those are liberal jobs. Well, the fact of the matter is that because we’re letting those stay as liberal jobs, there are going to be fewer and fewer of those young conservatives every generation. Like it or not, young minds are fed on a steady diet of a media that is still dominated by the left as much as it ever was, no longer because we can’t do anything about it, but because we won’t.

So I’m here to send a message. This message goes out to the people I’m calling The Creative Right. Stop whining. Right now. Stop whining about their music, their movies, their TV, their Internet. And start realizing that none of those things, not one, actually belongs to them. Those things belong to the creators, to the dreamers, to the people who care enough to put themselves out there. We conservatives supposedly believe in hard work and the free market, the power of entrepreneurs and visionaries, and the ability of one person to change things for the better. We’re also supposedly not afraid to put our religion out in the public square, so let me give you a tidbit from mine: “Faith without works is dead.” And because conservatives aren’t acting like they believe those things when it comes to creative fields, our culture is sick, decaying, rotting from the inside with the plague of a creative zeitgeist controlled by our adversaries. We can do better. But we have to prove it.

Here are the important points. One: Realize that everything is open to you. You are not limited to fields where you think conservatives have a foothold. That kind of thinking is why so many people sell out their principles to peer pressure to try and make it, because they mistakenly think that they have to. Two: You will not succeed by being conservative, you will succeed by being good at what you do. Be assured that there are ten thousand failures in Hollywood who are every bit as liberal as Janeane Garofalo and Harvey Weinstein — having the political advantage of being a leftist doesn’t mean as much as you think it does. Learn your craft, even if you have to put up with learning from persistent left wing proselytizers. You’re smart enough to sort out the genuinely essential information from the politics they try to shoehorn into it. If it’s any consolation, rest assured that academic bias is severe and systemic enough that you’d have to listen to almost as much socialist, gender feminist, racist, radical homosexual propaganda in an accounting or engineering class as you will in film or art school. Three: Most importantly, never give up. This will not be easy. It isn’t easy for them, so it sure won’t be easy for you.

The odds may seem long for a conservative who wants a career in a creative field, or anywhere in the media, but the fight here is every bit as crucial as the political fight. We can be as politically clever as we want, but if we give them free reign over the culture, we are ultimately fighting a losing battle. When history looks back on our time, it’ll be the sum total of what we created that tells them who we were. Right now, that picture looks pretty bleak. It’s time someone changed it. That someone is you — I’m talking to you, with the camera. And you, behind the keyboard. You, with the pen, the brush, the digitizer tablet. Their gatekeepers can’t keep you out, and even if they could, there’s a whole wide internet out there that doesn’t even have any friggin’ gates.

I know you’re out there. I’m out there too, working my way up along with you. Get to work, Creative Right. Find your muse, find your voice. And then, find each other. Get a few of you together, and see what you can do. I’ll see you there .

Podcast Show Notes

Obama wants to tell you what your house’s temperature should be, what car you can drive, and how much you can eat. (Hat Tip: Right Mind.) Obama’s new politics: Scaring Seniors on Social Security.

Plus things that Obama and his supporters can discuss, but critics can’t.

Arnold Schwarzeneggar wants the GOP to rebrand as more liberal. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

John McCain says he committed to all Americans, but apparently he considers LaRaza Americans, but not James Dobson. No wonder even in the face of Obama, John McCain continues to lose conservative voters.

Britain takes another step towards a brave new world.

An update on the case of a State Senator who tore down a pro-life display and was apparently unanimously re-elected.

The Chubbock Police Department raises funds for the special olympics.

Click here to download, click here to add this podcast to your Itunes.

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Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, third world county, McCain Blogs, Right Truth, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Last night was a reminder of what a tough year this will be for Republicans. The loss of the Congressional seat in Mississippi was tough. We had a great candidate, but the Democrat very effectively ran as a pro life, pro 2nd amendment conservative. I’m convinced that for the GOP to have wins this year we have to focus on specific issues and not party building (for us) or party bashing (against them).

What do you think the GOP needs to do to reverse the slide in support and start winning elections?

Huckabee in his MSNBC election analysis hit the nail on the head when he said the Republican Brand was damaged nationwide. I asked my wife, who is the less partisan of the two of us, what the Republicans had to do.

Her answers included: 1) Following through on commitments, 2) having a platform that means something, and 3) honesty.  Those are good starts. Here are my thoughts:

1) Get Serious With People

A lot of Republican leaders could care less about the rights of the unborn, the future of social security, or any of the issues that they pretend to care about. They’re pandering to our fears and making promises they have no intention of keeping. They’ll say anything to get elected. We need Republican leaders who actually believe in the principles of Republican power. Too many of our Republican leaders in Washington are just hungry to hang onto their own power and have no principles.’

People are getting sick of it and what’s killing us is a Republican leadership in Washington that at its core things Republicanism is about lower marginal tax rates and blowing up terrorists.

2) Deal With Tough Issues

Continuing to run up deficits while not addressing entitlements is idiotic. It’s time to address it.  Also, we have to have Republicans who aren’t afraid to drill in ANWR and solve the energy crisis. We have to get serious about taking care of the budget and reducing spending. What we had in a Republican Congress and a Republican White House included Tom DeLay’s inane statement that government was cut back as much as it could be.

3) Persuade the American People

When you have a vision, the thing to do is to persuade people of that vision to make the case. Republicans can be divided into two classes: 1) Those that pander to voters and accommodate them at their lowest and least, 2) those that echo around ideas in columns, preaching to the choir. Republicans have to learn to educate and make their case to ordinary Americans particularly in the middle class.

4) Republicans Must Admit Error and Protect Us From the GOP Errors

When I was younger when the GOP took power, I thought term limits was a poor idea. (After all, we’d term limit the good Congressmen as well as the bad ones) and the Balanced Budget Amendment was a nice idea, but not essential. After all, with Republicans in power, why would there be a problem balancing the budget? Oh, if I knew then what I know now.

 Fundamentally, term limits, a balanced budget Amendment, and a line item veto are vital tools, not secondary mechanisms. Republicans should advocate this reform agenda up front and center. What we’ve learned is that the best of party platforms will not protect a political party from the corrosive force of arrogance of power.

I’d advocate a term limit of two 6-year terms for the Senate and four 2-year terms for the House. The longer members of Congress, the more they’re likely to think of their constituents as them and the government as us. Also, the less likely they’ll be focused on doing what’s right and the more they’ll be focused on building a legacy.I’d favor requiring a Constitutional Amendment to balance the budget and for line item vetoes. We need to honestly admit that we have human weaknesses and we need to check those weaknesses lest they destroy the country.

In the comic books, Superman gave Batman a piece of Kryptonite because he knew the dangers his power could pose to those around him. Republicans should reach the same realization.

Doug Ross has some more policy suggestions that I’d wholeheartedly endorse.