It's Time to Pick a High Court Fight

It is unclear whether the Left realizes just how bad Justice Stevens’ timing was when he announced his retirement last week. Given the Democratic Party’s increasingly precarious prospects for the November elections, the very last thing it wants or needs is a summer long, partisan fight over a liberal Supreme Court nominee. Therefore, that is exactly what conservatives should give them.

The high court is losing its most liberal member at a time when modern liberalism is increasingly unpopular with the American electorate. President Obama will feel compelled to replace Stevens with an equally progressive, equally activist judge. Otherwise, he would risk moving the court to the right--something his base would never stand for.

Stevens will likely be replaced by someone who is very liberal and liberalism is very unpopular. Conditions are perfect for the G.O.P and the Tea-Parties’ opposition to whomever Obama nominates to resonate with the public.

Senate Republicans made acted wisely when they held their fire and went easy on Sonia Sotomayor during her confirmation process. At that point, the President was still relatively popular and the Democratic Party had yet to be mortally weakened by the health care debate. Not having the numbers to mount a filibuster, the Senate G.O.P. kept its powder dry. This gives Republicans added credibility when it goes after Obama’s next pick. And they should not hesitate to do so vigorously.

In ramming through health care, Democrats showed the country that they were willing to change all of the rules in order to get their unpopular bill passed. Terms such as “reconciliation” and “deem & pass” have become well-known and infamous additions to the political lexicon. Along with the shady deals which were made in full view of the American people, these acts of legislative arrogance proved that the Democrats have nothing but contempt for the public’s desire for bipartisanship and a government which at the very least attempts to hide its backroom shenanigans from the inconvenient stare of the public.


It is predictable that Democrats will cry “obstructionism” if the G.O.P. flouts tradition by filibustering a Supreme Court nominee. But these accusations are likely to be viewed as the height of hypocrisy by a country still smarting from being ignored by Democrats during the health care debate. The Democrats don’t have a leg to stand on.

Obama’s efforts to sell the still deeply unpopular health care overhaul have fallen on deaf ears, further complicating things for the Democrats. It now appears that the Democrats want to change the subject as soon as possible. A battle over a new Supreme Court justice actually prevents them from doing so.

Instead of a debate about over abortion--the focus of past high court confirmation battles--the upcoming Senate smackdown will inevitably turn on the nominee’s views on the constitutionality of Obama’s health care mandate, which forces Americans to buy health insurance from private entities.

Thus far Democrats have explained away concerns over the legality of the mandate with vague references to the Commerce Clause. Yet, to this point, no Democrat has adequately explained how the Commerce Clause permits the government to force Americans to buy a good or service from a private party. Senate Republicans must make sure that Obama’s nominee is not able to worm his or her way out of answering this question. Making this the focus of the hearing and a prominent topic of the national conversation ensures that voters are continuously reminded of the health care fiasco that took place over the last year. Stretching this conversation out until the fall will benefit us immensely.

Oh, that pesky Constitution. Always getting in the way of the Left’s never-ending crusade for government-administered social justice. This poses yet another problem for Obama’s pick. Like Stevens, Obama’s selection for the court is likely to fit the mold of every other Democratic high court nominee of the last 30 years--an activist judge who believes that the Constitution is not to be taken literally, but is instead a “living” document, the language of which can be manipulated in order to justify just about any policy which that judge deems to be a moral imperative.

It’s unclear whether Obama has noticed or not, but right now the Constitution is experiencing a renaissance among conservative and independent voters. They kind of want their elected leaders to, you know, follow it.

Liberals may think the founding document is outdated and flawed, but if conservatives are successful in making the upcoming hearings about the relevance of the founders’ wishes and can turn the public’s attention to how 220 year old intentions conflict with Obamacare, the Democrats are going to pay a huge price.


There was a time when a great deal of deference was given to the president in the naming of Supreme Court judges. In a less partisan era, it was widely believed that the founders intended the Senate to base its decision to confirm or oppose a nominee on a judge’s competence and knowledge of the law. Then, Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden changed everything by opposing the nomination of the eminently qualified Robert Bork, solely on ideological grounds. In recent years, the Left has continued this strategy, putting strict constructionist judges through a vicious ideological and, at times, personal wringer in hopes of destroying their credibility.


By changing the standards by which judges are judged, the Left believed they were ensuring the continuation of progressive judicial activism and thus, the modern liberal agenda for generations to come. However, they are about to get a comeuppance for their agenda driven behavior.


In the end, Obama will probably get his pick through as we know that Harry Reid will not hesitate to go nuclear if he’s not getting his way. But that’s not the point of this upcoming exercise.

While it should sadden conservatives to accept that the standard by which the Senate approves judges has unalterably diverged from the intention of the founders, the benefits of putting up a protracted fight in this instance, both politically and for the sake of the Constitution, should not be shied away from. Given the anti-progressive mood of the country and the fact that even the confirmation of a far-left jurist will not change the balance of power on the court, this appears to be a no-lose situation for the conservative movement.

- Dan Joseph

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Preempting the V.A.T.

On Tuesday, Obama economic advisor Paul Volcker confirmed what many conservatives have assumed for months--Democrats are considering the implementation of a national sales tax in order to pay for the massive amounts of money that they have added to the debt since Obama took office. This national sales tax, known to economists as the “Value Added Tax” or V.A.T, would apply to every American and would be added to the amount we pay for almost every product we buy. The tax would be higher for some types of items than for others, but all in all it would hit middle and lower class Americans the hardest, diminishing their already limited buying power.

Now, let’s not dwell on the fact that putting such a tax in place would be a complete reversal of Barack Obama’s oft-repeated campaign promise that he would not raise taxes on anyone making over $200,000 a year. By now we should all know that this president’s promises are worth about as much as the promises that Tiger Woods makes to adult film stars.

Nor should we assume that those who continue to support this president are going to begin questioning why such a tax is warranted. In a sane world, you’d think this group would be among the first to question the V.A.T.’s necessity. After all, Obama's base seems to be the only group that believes that Obamacare is actually “deficit neutral” and that the $787 billion stimulus package is well on its way to bringing about a return to 5% unemployment and a sustained period of robust economic growth. Why would people who see such a bright and prosperous future think that a something as drastic as a V.A.T was needed? But analytical thinking was never the Obamabot's strong suit. Alas,convincing these dedicated Obama devotees to go against the president is hopeless. Obama’s core supporters are split into two groups. Those who truly believe that turning the U.S. into a European-style, social welfare state is a good thing and those who don’t pay any attention and are simply waiting for their share of Obama’s “stash” to show up in their mailbox. Both are a lost cause.

However, there remains a large group of independent voters who are still in the process of forming their initial opinion about President Obama. This group may not have been able to fully grasp the complexities of the health care reform debate, but they will sure as hell understand what a national sales tax will do to their pocketbooks. My guess is that they are not going to like it one bit.

This morning the possibility of a federal V.A.T was the primary focus of conservative radio talkers. Conservative hosts should keep the focus on this new tax for the next few months. Make sure the base knows everything about it--how it will be implemented, its negative effects on the economy and its regressive nature. Conservative talk radio and Fox News were instrumental in ensuring that the conservative base knew far more about the details and consequences of Obamacare than did our liberal opponents. This information trickled down the pipeline to moderates and independents and they quickly turned against the bill forcing Democrats to pass a wildly unpopular piece of legislation contrary to popular will. This act of hubris has threatened the Democrat’s congressional majorities and has hindered their ability to pass other items on their agenda. The same kind of education of the public should occur with the V.A.T and the conversation needs to begin right now.


Next, every Democrat who is running for office this year should be endlessly challenged by their opponents and the conservative media on the subject of the V.A.T and it should be demanded that they go on record either in support or opposition to the tax. Between now and November, an effort must be made to force every single one of them to take a position. If House Blue Dogs and senators in tough races admit that they will support the tax or refuse to say that they will oppose it, G.O.P. candidates will have a huge cudgel with which to bludgeon them throughout the summer. (Note: I am not advocating the literal bludgeoning of Democrats.) By making the V.A.T part of the national conversation before it is even proposed, we can also force President Obama to address the issue publicly. If he backs off, great. If he admits that he’s considering it, even better. Bigger gains for us in November.

Finally, it is important that conservatives cut off the Democratic talking points at the knees before they have an opportunity to infect the weak-minded, “Yes We Can” crowd. When it comes to selling the V.A.T, the Obama administration and its congressional allies will almost certainly embrace a talking point in which they allude to the fact that a national sales tax is an idea that has been embraced in the past by conservatives. Conservatives must make sure that people understand that our side’s support for such a tax is conditioned on the V.A.T replacing the progressive income tax. We are adamantly opposed to it being levied in addition to the income tax as the Left wants to do.

If Obama and the Democrats had wanted to be honest about their plans, they would have proposed the V.A.T prior to the budget busting triumvirate of stimulus, omnibus and Obamacare. Instead, they plan to propose it after the fact and disingenuously warn the American people that our debt is going to become unsustainable without the new revenue source. The conservative response should be “tough luck.” We were unanimous in our opposition to these big spending programs and would be more than happy to defund them and repeal them, but otherwise our plan is to starve the beast. If we kill the V.A.T and Democrats go ahead with their reckless spending, 100% of the blame for the repercussions should be aimed at the Democrats. Such are the risks of partisanship and broken promises. Time to pay the piper.


The truth is that the implementation of a European-style national sales tax would most likely lead to European-style economic stagnation and unemployment. But that increasingly seems to be the Democrat’s long-term plan. It’s time to call their bluff. We need to make this summer the summer of the V.A.T in order to ensure that, regardless of the results of November’s elections, a national sales tax does not become a permanent revenue source that will, in all likelihood, just be frittered away by Congress anyway, leaving the debt at the same staggering heights that it has reached during Obama’s first year in office.

Last week, at a town hall meeting, a woman named Joyce Ravis echoed the thoughts of millions of Americans and told the president straight up:“We are over-taxed as it is.”
Obama responded with a 17 minute, 2500 word, rambling filibuster in which he talked about health care, Wal-Mart, roof repair, George W. Bush (of course), foreign aid and something about a janitor who cleans office buildings. Only once did he even come close to addressing Joyce’s major concern and he essentially brushed that off by saying

“I don't think this will affect you, but I don't know -- you know, I don't know your family's circumstances.”

Wow.

If Obama was an honest politician, and most of us can now say with a great deal of certainty that he the antithesis of such a being, he could have trimmed his 2,500 word non-answer down to a 15 word straightforward response and said:

“If you think that your taxes are high now Joyce, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

-Dan Joseph

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Conservatives Should Stick With McCain

We’ve seen this narrative play out before. It doesn’t end well.

In 2006, the Democrats could taste their takeover of Congress months before the November elections. That summer, the far-left, virulently anti-war faction of the party went all out to defeat longtime Democratic Senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate primary. They succeeded in replacing Lieberman as the Democratic nominee with a MoveOn.org backed candidate named Ned Lamont. The thinking was that in a huge Democratic year in a solidly Democratic state, Lamont would easily win the general election against his G.O.P opponent.

That’s not what happened.

Instead, Lieberman ran as an independent and garnered enough support from independents, moderate Democrats and Republicans to beat Lamont and earn himself another six year term. Since then, Lieberman has been a consistent thorn in the side of the Democratic Party, speaking out against the party establishment’s weak-kneed approach to terrorism and the wars in the Middle East and, most recently, killing the Public Option, the path to single payer health care that the American Left wanted more than any other item in the health care bill.


Now, with the winds of change finally blowing in our direction, conservatives are faced with an almost identically delicate situation. A long-serving senator with a famous independent streak who was recently the standard bearer for the Republican Party is facing a close primary fight. Many conservative purists, led in part by the Tea Party movement, want to punish John McCain for his past sins, confident that his G.O.P. replacement, J.D. Hayworth will be capable of holding onto the McCain seat in November.

But conservatives really need to think this through. The consequences of a McCain loss in the Arizona primary are unpredictable and present a risk of serious damage to the conservative movement.

McCain’s conservative critics rightfully point to his vote against the Bush tax cuts, his push for amnesty and his flirtation with global warming alarmism as proof that he lacks ideological consistency. While there is some doubt about his dedication to the conservative cause, there can be no doubt about his resolve and the size of his ego. I seriously doubt that the guy who survived five years of torture (Not waterboarding. Actual torture.) in a Viet Cong interment camp is going to simply pack it in if he loses a G.O.P primary in a state where he is immensely popular and has enjoyed bipartisan support for 25 years.

If McCain loses to Hayworth in the primary, my guess is that he will take a page from the book of his good buddy Joe Lieberman and run as an independent. If this occurs, one of two scenarios will unfold.

In all likelihood, McCain will piece together enough support from moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats and his state’s independents to get on the November ballot and win the general election. He will then feel beholden to no ideology and spend the next six years exacting revenge on the conservatives who ousted him by making crummy deals with Barack Obama and the Democrats.

And that’s the best case scenario.

In the other scenario, McCain runs as an independent, splits the conservative vote with Hayworth in the general and hands the seat to a Democrat. If losing this one seat keeps us from taking back the Senate in November, who benefits the most? If you said “Barack Hussein Obama,” you guessed right.

The balance of power is not the only area where throwing John McCain under the bus may negatively impact the conservative cause.

Despite his high profile breaks with the G.O.P in the past, McCain has been rock solid in his opposition to the Obama agenda. Given his history as a bipartisan “maverick” you would have thought McCain would have been first in line to cut deals with the once popular Obama on the stimulus package and health care reform. But McCain stuck with the conservatives while true RINOs like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist jumped ship. Not only that, but McCain used his high national profile to lead the charge against these terrible ideas. He must be given his share of the credit for helping turn public opinion against Obama’s big government agenda and giving the G.O.P new life politically. McCain, more than any other member of the Republican caucus, seems to have received the small government, anti-income redistribution message being sent by the Tea Party and is behaving accordingly. It simply doesn’t make sense to fire someone who has been doing exactly what we’ve been demanding Republicans do for the last year.

On issues like earmark reform and national security, McCain has been with the conservatives all along. He never buckled during the Iraq debate, even when George W. Bush was wallowing in 30% approval ratings. Despite losing an election that would have been unwinnable for anyone with an “R” next to their name, McCain maintains credibility unmatched by anyone in the Republican Party on matters of foreign policy and national security. When he speaks on these subjects, he repeatedly exposes the amateurish, naiveté of the current administration.


Unlike the now powerless anti-war movement, the vast majority of Tea Partiers are not radical ideologues. Also unlike the anti-war Left, the Tea Partiers are promoting views that are shared by a majority of Americans. But, as they have made perfectly obvious throughout the course of the last week, the mainstream media has it out for the Tea Partiers and are searching tirelessly for a brush with which to paint its participants as extremists.

If conservative purists are successful in ousting McCain, who is still viewed by many as someone who believes in bipartisanship and who has reached across the aisle throughout his career (a quality that independent voters still crave) his defeat will be used as a bludgeon against all conservatives. Our opponents and the mainstream media will portray conservatives and Republicans as being the doorkeepers of a small tent who eat their own candidates if they exhibit anything other than a lifelong pattern of ideological purity. Such an act of political cannibalism will appear even more irrational if the guy being eaten is the same dude we were trying to make leader of the free world less than two years ago.

So while I completely understand the desire of conservatives to see Republicans with a history of liberal votes kicked out of office, this should not lead us to equate a John McCain with the likes of Dede Scozzafava.

What, exactly, would conservatives stand to gain by acting so vengefully? Seriously. What's the payoff on this one?

If we want to send the message that RINOism will no longer be tolerated, there are other ways to do so using the political process that don’t risk devastating the conservative power structure by giving the boot to popular, longstanding incumbents.

For example, it looks as though Florida conservatives intend to punish G.O.P establishment candidate Charlie Crist for supporting President Obama’s non-stimulating, stimulus by nominating Marco Rubio in a landslide.


Good.

Rand Paul is doing very well against another RNC backed candidate in Kentucky.

That’s fine with me as well.

But we conservatives shouldn’t put ourselves in a position where we abandon those who have spent their lives as dedicated advocates for many fundamental conservative principles, simply because they haven’t been true to our favored ideology 100% of the time.

After the Left took down Joe Lieberman in the 2006 Democratic primary, conservative talk radio hosts and cable commentators blasted the Left for throwing a principled politician overboard simply because he didn’t toe the liberal line on a few issues. They were right to do so and their liberal counterparts will be completely justified in blasting conservatives if they abandon McCain.

I have nothing against J.D. Hayworth. But the last thing our new conservative juggernaut needs right now is our own Ned Lamont.

Ronald Reagan believed that the person who voted with him 80% of the time was his friend. I assure you that he would have been adamantly opposed to the way in which many conservatives are abandoning Senator McCain in the name of ideological purity.

-Dan Joseph

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Six Reasons For Conservatives to Smile

Last night, conservatives lost a major battle in the fight for limited government. There’s really no way to sugar coat that fact. This health care monstrosity will be nearly impossible to repeal and even if the federal mandate forcing every American to purchase health insurance is found to be unconstitutional, we are still left with a new, massive entitlement that will result in higher taxes, higher insurance premiums and a lower quality of health care for the vast majority of Americans. Today, conservatives are despondent and with good cause.

But we put up an amazing fight. We did absolutely everything we could do to keep America from treading down the incredibly short-sighted path to more government control of our nation’s health care system. But, in the end, we had to bow to the realities of an overwhelming Democratic congressional majority and a Speaker of the House who is gifted at convincing her Democratic colleagues to fall in line and who has no qualms about handing out goodies to those who need some extra persuading.

However, while Democrats celebrate, there are reasons for conservatives to be thankful and hopeful on this dark day for the country that most Americans know and love. Since the health care issue became the focus of the national conversation more than a year ago Conservatives have made incredible gains in terms of the popularity of their ideas and have succeeded in dramatically changing the terms of the entire debate concerning the role of government. This bodes extremely well for us in future elections and very poorly for the future of the Democratic Party and of the progressive movement in the United States. Here is a list of some of the things that Conservatives can be happy about on a day when many of us are feeling hopelessly depressed.

1.The Health Care Bill Contains No “Public Option.”

At the beginning of this fight, the idea of a government-run insurance company that would “compete” with private insurers was the centerpiece of the Democratic health care plan. Of course, the goal was never to increase “competition.” It was to drive the private insurance companies out of business. Anyone with a third grade understanding of basic economics knows that there’s no way a private insurer could have survived when faced with a government competitor that didn’t have to worry about making a profit. The goal all along was to use the public option to achieve a single-payer health care system. Many Democrats admitted as much.


The expansion of the Medicaid entitlement, the new taxes and the onerous new regulations that will be placed on the private insurers will be painful and will damage the nation’s ability to grow economically. But, a public option leading to single-payer would have done far more damage, permanently stymieing the exceptional American economic engine which has made our economy the envy of the world for the past three decades. Additionally, single payer systems inevitable result in increased rationing and huge declines in the quality of care. America dodged a bullet when the public option died.

2.Conservatives won the policy debate.

The fact that the bill was opposed by a majority of Americans from the summer of 2009 until its passage was not a result of Republican misinformation as the Democrats would like you to believe. In fact, the American people turned against the plan despite the steady stream of misinformation about the bill’s effects that came from Barack Obama and his allies and which were intended to bamboozle the electorate into supporting it.

At every turn, the majority of the American people saw right through all of it. When the President claimed the bill would lower costs, the American people understood that this defied logic. When Democrats repeatedly claimed that it would lower the deficit, only the most dedicated Obamabot believed this to be possible. The Left’s claim that our health care system was equivalent to that of a Third World nation and that more government intervention was required to help us catch up with the “civilized” world was an easily disproved canard.

The overwhelming victory that conservatives achieved in the policy debate was a triumph of facts over talking points. The superiority of our side’s argument was exhibited repeatedly from threads on blogs and Facebook to the square table at Blair House where Paul Ryan made the President cringe in frustration as he was presented with his own misstatements. In the end, our arguments forced the Democrats to pass an unpopular bill and has put them at risk of losing the House of Representatives in the coming November elections—a possibility that was unthinkable a year ago. It also destroyed much of President Obama’s credibility and the moderate image of a post-partisan figure that he had worked so hard to cultivate among independent voters during the 2008 election cycle.


3.An informed, powerful conservative grassroots movement has been born.

One of the reasons that conservatives were so successful in winning the policy debate was because they became engaged at the grassroots level in an unprecedented way. For the first time in political history, regular everyday folks were actually reading thousands of pages of mundane legislation to try and understand exactly what was in it. On talk radio and in the blogosphere, it was clear that those who were once casual observers of the political process had acquired a fairly deep understanding of a very complicated issue.

While the Left’s argument never really went much further than to suggest that the expansion of government provided health care was the compassionate thing to do, those on the Right were explaining the economically damaging results of past government health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, the failed experiments of systems in Canada, the U.K. and Massachusetts, the true ramifications of the public option and the questionable constitutionality of the nationwide insurance mandate.

When Obama tired to make doctors out to be soulless monsters controlled by greed who were taking out children’s tonsils unnecessarily in order to make a quick buck, conservatives countered by explaining that the reason doctors often perform unnecessary procedures is because they are protecting themselves against the possibility of expensive and often frivolous malpractice lawsuits.

The Democrats key assertion that insurance industry greed was the primary cause of high insurance premiums was easily disproved and conservatives across the country shot emails to their liberal friends and family members showing that the insurance industry is not really that profitable at all, bringing in only about 3 pennies on the dollar in annual profits and ranking 87th in terms of their profitability among all American industry’s.

When Democrats touted the CBO numbers claiming that their trillion dollar health care legislation actually “reduced” the deficit, conservatives pointed out how Democrats dishonestly manipulated the numbers by double counting the dollars being spent and through budget gimmickry like hiding the Medicare “doctor fix” in a separate bill.

On point after point, in debate after debate, conservatives got the better of their unprepared liberal opponents. This occurred because conservatives and many independents made an unprecedented effort to educate themselves on the health care issue. The conservative side of the electorate is now more engaged and paying closer attention to policy debates in Washington than ever before. Add that to their seemingly endless supply of energy and persistence and you have a new conservative activist base that is truly a force to be reckoned with.

4.The length of the debate was a huge setback for the Democrats.

Remember how the Democrats wanted to have health care reform done by June of 2009? That didn’t really work out so well. Because of the unanimous conservative opposition to the bill and the conservative movement’s ability to convince the majority of Americans that the Democrat’s proposals were not beneficial to the country as a whole, the debate dragged on and on. Had the Democrats successfully passed a bill last summer, they would have had nine extra months in which to move on to other issues like “Cap & Trade” and immigration reform. Democrats would have not suffered the damage that the extended debate caused them in the polls and they would have likely made quite a bit of headway in achieving parts two, three and four of their liberal agenda. There would have been no Scott Brown. No angry town halls and the Tea Party movement would have never become as powerful as it is today.

Now, seven months before the mid-term elections, the Democrats would have to be completely suicidal to bring up another of their controversial agenda items in this heated political environment. Can you imagine what would happen if we spent this summer debating amnesty for illegal immigrants? All hell would break loose and the Democrats would almost certainly lose Congress.

Additionally, even without another protracted policy fight, it is almost certain that the G.O.P will make significant gains in both the House and the Senate come November. Given the unity exhibited by the Republican caucus over the past year, it is almost impossible that the Democrats will be capable of getting any more of Obama’s leftist agenda enacted once their majorities have been trimmed. This could perhaps be the case for the remainder of Obama’s term in office.

5.Obama is not as charismatic or convincing as we once thought.

Perhaps conservatives underestimated Nancy Pelosi’s ability to push legislation through Congress. But it looks as though we dramatically overestimated Barack Obama’s ability to sell his policy ideas to the American people. At the beginning of the debate, Americans had overwhelmingly positive feelings about both the President and health care reform. By Christmas, a majority of Americans opposed the Democrats’ proposal and Obama’s personal approval rating was 15% points lower than it had been after his inauguration despite the fact that Obama had dedicated the better part of the year to speeches and interviews touting his health care reform package. In fact, the Rassmussen polling firm recently cited the fact that every time Obama made a major push for the legislation, his approval rating fell and the numbers in favor of Obamacare remained stagnant.


It would appear that what was once thought to be Obama’s greatest asset, his communication skills and his seeming ability to convince vast swaths of the electorate that excrement tastes good, are not the threats to the conservative cause that we once thought them to be. Obama and his enablers in the media will undoubtedly tout the passage of health care reform as a huge victory for Obama. However, the evidence suggests that the plan passed despite Obama, not because of him. It is truly remarkable just how ineffective the President’s arguments in favor off health care reform were in convincing the electorate to adopt his goals as their own. Conservatives no longer have any reason to be intimidated by Obama’s once legendary rhetorical abilities.

6.The Republican Party is Conservative Again.

Finally, conservatives nationwide should be extremely happy with the congressional Republicans’ ability to stand together unanimously against headwinds that seemed impossible to navigate only a year ago. They fought tooth and nail against the health care monstrosity from the beginning to the end. Devout conservatives like Tom Coburn and John Boehner stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of John McCain, Lindsey Graham and others whose dedication to the conservative cause has been repeatedly questioned by the base for years. They did so for two reasons.

First, every Republican was antithetically opposed to this government power grab. For the past year, conservatives have justifiably denounced the G.O.P for its free spending ways during the Bush administration. But when faced with the prospect of enacting a full-out undiluted government entitlement, their conservative instincts kicked in and they didn’t budge.

Second, and most importantly, it showed that G.O.P. leaders have heard the message that has been sent by the vast majority of conservative Americans over the past two years--that we expect them to be real conservatives, not RINOs; that we demand that they exhibit a true dedication to principles of limited government, deficit reduction and the ideals set down in our nation’s founding documents.

A little over a year ago, moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and David Brooks were telling us that if the G.O.P. did not moderate and start behaving more like Democrats, who had been victorious in 2006 and 2008, our party would almost certainly become irrelevant, enjoying only limited regional power. It is now obvious that these predictions completely misjudged the true ideological leanings of the American majority. So while the arrival of Obamacare gives us reason to mourn, what has ensued over the year-long battle that we waged against it give us a number of reasons to be incredibly optimistic about the future of our country and the future of the conservative movement.

-Dan Joseph

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Obama's $500 Billion Lie

Even in a life-long conservative, I told you so kind of way, I take absolutely no pleasure in the following statement: At no time in our history have the President and Congress jointly and willfully deceived the American people so egregiously as have Barack Obama and the Democrats on the issue of health care reform.

Of the multitude of lies foisted upon us since the debates inception, none is as bald faced as the Democrats unanimous assertion that the legislation currently being considered will reduce the deficit.

Today, giddy Democrats held a press conference to tout the Congressional Budget Office’s numbers which score the bill at $940 Billion and which, on paper, claims that Obama’s new entitlement will not only be deficit neutral but will actually reduce the deficit over the next twenty years.

Tommorow, here in Fairfax County, Mr. Obama will stand before an adoring audience and make an identical claim. Those in attendance will cheer. Any brave soul who dares to yell out “You lie!” will inevitably be drowned out by the swooning hundreds, still entranced by the president’s celebrity status and rhetorical prowess. But this brave soul would be right.

It’s a fact that there is no deficit reduction in this bill. This bill will add to the deficit.

Yes the CBO is non-partisan. Yes their calculations are technically correct. The manipulation of the numbers happened before the bill was even in the CBO’s hands. You see, the CBO does not simply look at legislation and estimate its cost. What happens is,the CBO is given a list of expenditures and, in this case was asked to determine what the effect on the deficit would be IF a sum of hypothetical money was spent a hypothetical way. But, when the Democrats handed the plan to the CBO they included a fictional $500 Billion. For 13 months we’ve been told that this bill would be paid for in large part by half-a-trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare. The CBO estimate not only assumes that those cuts will be found and implemented (something that most of us familiar with Washington politics see as very unlikely) but it also counts the same $500 Billion twice. Once to pay for the new entitlement in which 31 million people will get a health care handout from the government and then again to make Medicare solvent. Add this to the fact that an additional $250 Billion in cuts in reimbursement rates to doctors has been hidden in another bill and what you have is a bill that very clearly ADDS too the deficit. So either the Democratic Party is really bad at basic math or they’re full of it.

True progressives can almost be forgiven for ignoring this whopper. If you sincerely believe that the expansion of the nanny state and a vast reworking of the American economy is a moral imperative and that it needs to be done by any means available then the lie may seem like a necessary evil.

However, for our highest ranking public officials or those who conveniently choose to ignore Obama and Pelosi’s Climategate style, budgetary magic in hopes of securing a political victory for the President, (I’m looking at you mainstream media) this blatent dishonesty is unforgivable.

What makes this even stranger is that this lying seems almost pathological.

The public isn’t stupid. The majority of them are not so ignorant as to think that congress can enact a huge entitlement and at the same time reduce the deficit in either the short or the long term. This majority already opposes the bill and at this stage their minds are made up. There is no way that they are going to swing back and give the president their stamp of approval at this point in the game. Convincing them is a lost cause. And it’s not as though the Democrats care about public opinion in the first place. They have been intent on ramming this bill through since last summer, regardless of the fact that the proposal has been upside down in the opinion polls for months.

President Obama and congressional supporters of this bill smile big at the podiums knowing full well of the deception in which they are taking part. The Blue Dogs know that their jobs will still be at risk even if some of their more gullible independent constituents buy into the farce.

So what, exactly, is the incentive to propagating this huge lie?

It’s partially being done to try and make up for the Democrat’s historic blunder in proposing a costly new entitlement at a time of economic uncertainty and when deficit reduction is on the minds of a growing number of American citizens. Not to convince us perhaps, but rather for Democrats to convince themselves that they are actually cleverer than the evidence suggests.

But even if it is an exercise in self delusion, it does not excuse the behavior of the President and his enablers. This particular lie is simply the latest and the greatest in a string of untruths that have come from the president since the inception of the health care struggle. His repeated claim that if passed the public option wouldn’t eliminate anyone’s ability to maintain the services of their current physician and the more recently floated falsity that the bill will lower costs for individuals and families both come to mind.

Right now, many Americans fear for their country and with good reason. They are obviously deeply distressed over the permanent economic damage the bill will result in and the havoc that it will wreak on the U.S. health care system if passed. But they also fear for the political process itself. Never in modern times has the sausage making been so underhanded and corrupt. Obama and the Democrats have decided to change the rules deep into the game. Reconciliation can now be used to pass just about anything. The House is flirting with the idea of eliminating the need for an up or down vote, even on the most consequential pieces of legislation. Favorites are being played openly and regularly whether they be labor unions or Senators from states whose votes are required for passage. But most importantly, it is possible that the Democrats will achieve victory on a piece of legislation that has been sold to the public almost entirely using pretenses that the leadership knows to be false. The idea that this could become standard practice not only for the current Democratic Party establishment, but for our future leaders on both sides of the aisle is a terrifying prospect.

For eight years we have heard the liberals repeat the assertion that George W. Bush “lied” us into war with Iraq. Yet, after all of this time the Left has never put up a shred of real evidence to prove this charge. When it comes to Obamacare however, the evidence is everywhere. It is easily accessed and overwhelming. It pains me greatly to say this about any commander in chief. I have always prided myself on holding back on using this particular term for our highest officeholder until there is an obvious and flagrant disregard for the truth and it is exhibited on multiple occasions. That standard has been met. President Obama is a funadamentally dishonest individual.

-Dan Joseph

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Call the Blue Dogs! The Stop Obamacare Phone Tree.

The fate of the future of the nation's health care system and the American economy lies in the hands of these "Blue Dog" Democrats. Call them and tell them that either they're with the American people or they're with Nancy Pelosi. If it's the latter then they are likely to find themselves unemployed come next January.

Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
(202) 225-5315

Mark Schauer (D-Mich.)
(202) 225-6276

Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.)
(202) 225-3665

Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.),
(202) 225-3701

Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-5406

Chris Carney (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-3731

Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.)
(202) 225-6511

Tom Perriello (D-Va.)
(434) 293-9631

Steve Kagen (D-Wis.)
(202) 225-5665

Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.)
(202) 225-4172

Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.)
(202) 225-3452

Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.)
(701) 235-9760

Allen Boyd (D-Fla.)
(202) 225-5235

Bill Owens (D-N.Y.)
(202) 225-4611

Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.)
(202) 225-2315

Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.)
(202) 225-2190

Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
(202) 225-2542

John Barrow (D-Ga.)
(202) 225-2823

Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)
(202) 225-4231

Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
(202) 226-6866

Jim Matheson (D-Utah)
(801) 486-1236

Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
(202) 225-4031

Mike Ross (D-Ark)
(202) 225-3772

Zack Space (D-Ohio)
(202) 225-6265

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Generation Right Fan Page

The Facebook fan page for Generation Right is up and running. Not much there yet, but soon it will be full of useful info regarding the contents and the release of the book.

See the scaffolding here.

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The Audacity of Dem Hypocrisy

So this video exposes Obama and his fellow Dems as total hypocrites(but you probably already knew that). They also need to keep in mind that if they try to pull this off using reconciliation the GOP will have a free pass the next time we have a senate majority and we want to use reconciliation to pass something. And... it will be something the Dems really hate, like an end to the progressive income tax or private accounts for social security. Maybe even overturning this health care bill. Who knows? Sky's the limit!

Whatever the case, the GOP should totally play this video at tomorrow's health care summit.

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Jason Mattera's CPAC Speech

Last Thursday at CPAC, Young America's Foundation Spokesman Jason Mattera gave a very good, very funny speech on attracting young people to the conservative movement. You can view the speech here.

I have no real problem with Materra's controversial statements or the dialect with which he delivered the speech.

Materra, who like myself, is the author of an upcoming book on this topic, was unfairly attacked by the New York Times on its blog which insinuated that parts of the speech were racist. This accusation has no basis in reality. Mattera took a few cheap shots at Obama, but said nothing that could be construed as even remotely bigoted by any intellectually honest observer.

Where I take issue with Mattera's speech was what I saw as an overly optimistic portrayal of the changing attitudes of young people towards the president. Mattera said:

“Actually, on the cocaine front, I do believe many people in America viewed Barack as they do drugs: it was a substance to experiment with.”

“But like most narcotics, the hangover afterward has them thinking, What the hell did I just do?”

A good analogy, but I don't see it.

Quinnipiac recently released a poll showing that 58% of voters between the ages of 18-34 still approve of the job that the president is doing. This is down only 8% points from his election night total and does not account for the fact that the poll adds voters aged 30-34 into the tally while the election result of 66% tallied voters between the ages of 18-29.

Only 33% of voters aged 18-34 disapproved of Obama's job performance. Given that those aged 30-34 are more likely to have a less favorable view of Obama it means that less than the 33% of voters 18-29 who cast ballots for John McCain, disapprove of the job Obama is doing.

All of this while the general population's approval of Obama has dropped nearly 23% since his inauguration.

All of these numbers mean one of two things. Both bad.

Either young people are still very supportive of Obama's hyper-liberal agenda or they're simply not paying attention to the current policy debate that has been taking place since the election season ended.

If it's the former,it means that young people are actually ideologically liberal and they were not simply reacting to Obama's soaring rhetoric and undefined promises of "hope" and "changed" when they overwhelmingly supported him in 2008.

If it's the latter, and the weak outpouring of activism from young voters when it came to Obama's health care push tells me it is, it means that these young people are oblivious to all of the damaging policies that Obama is currently proposing and will see no reason not to vote for Obama in 2012.


Mattera may have simply been trying to rally the troops with his impressive CPAC speech. But the glasses he was wearing appear to be a bit too rosy. An overly optimistic view of the situation could put the conservative movement at risk of assuming that young voters will turn against Obama automatically once the rest of the electorate does.

If this does not happen conservative candidates will remain in the same difficult position with young voters as the found themselves in a year ago.

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Cover Art

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Snowpocalypse Funnies

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Good News....

Liberalism is dead. Again.

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Time to Get Behind Mark Kirk.

I know that we're not all happy about Mark Kirk being the GOP nominee for Barack Obama's old senate seat. Yes he voted for Cap & Trade (although I'm not so sure he'll back it if it ever comes up for another vote.) However, we Republican Beggars can't be conservative choosers here. Kirk is the best chance the GOP has at taking back a Democratic seat in a very blue state. If he turns out to be a RINO we can bitch about it for 6 years. but unless you want another Chicago style politician who's entrenched in that city's corrupt political machine in the Senate, then we have no real choice. And think about this. Let's say Harry Reid loses his seat, but the Democrats maintain their majority because Kirk loses in Illinois. You know who gets to be in charge of the Senate for the next two years? Either Dick Durbin, who is also neck deep in the corrupt Illinois system or Chuck Schumer. We need to think about those possibilities before we start applying a purity test to Kirk and looking for a Tea-Party alternative.

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Obama's Epic Jobs Fail

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My First Webcast

For my first foray into the world of Webcasting (Is that a word?) I decided to go with topic that wasn't controversial. Hope you like it.

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Curtis Gans thinks "Birthers" a Major Force Within GOP

Curtis Gans is the director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate at American University.

He was kind enough to offer up his opinion to CNN.com in an article concerning the GOP's prospects of picking up seats in the November mid-term elections.

In warning against the GOP moving too far to "the Right" he cites "birthers" and "Tea-Party" activists as posing the greatest danger to the GOP's prospects for a big mid-term win.

"If the 'birthers' and the Tea Party people win most of the primaries in the Republican Party, that may not yield as much of a Republican victory in the general election as if their more moderate elements win."


Gans goes on to slam Marco Rubio, the Florida senate hopeful currently giving Gov. Charlie Crist a run for his money in that state's GOP primary.

"Rubio has the enthusiasm of the birthers and the Tea Party people and others like that, and that may propel him to the nomination, but it will be harder for the Republican Party to win in Florida under Rubio than it would be under a more moderate person."

Gans manages to mention the "birthers" twice in the relatively short CNN article.


Now, Mr. Gans is a big time Democratic Party insider so his personal political preferences are obvious, however his attempts to attach the "birther" label to the entire Tea Party movement and Marco Rubio show that Gans is either being intentionally misleading or that he is hopelessly out of touch with the reality of the current divisions within the GOP.

In all honesty, I haven't heard anyone besides those on the Left even mention the "birthers" in at least six months.

Even if the dispute over Obama's birthplace were still being debated and the "birthers" demands to see President Obama's birth certificate were still being taken seriously by anyone in the media, what evidence does Gans have that "birthers" are making up a significant portion of Rubio's base?

I don't think he has any.

The reason Gans keeps bringing up the "birthers" in the CNN article--in which he was interviewed to represent the "non-partisan" group that he heads--is because Gans knows that the "birthers" show the GOP and the Tea Party movement in a negative light. They make the movement appear irrational and unbalanced.

Pointing to the "birthers" is quite common when leftist pundits and commentators are trying to prove that the Right's hatred for President Obama is just as visceral as the Left's was for George W. Bush.

Through his commentary, Gans is trying to hurt the GOP by falsely implying that the "birthers" are a powerful and organized force within the party. An individual in his position obviously knows that this is not the case.

Trust me Mr. Gans when I tell you that most conservative activists and talk-radio callers have long forgotten the non-controversy surrounding Mr. Obama's place of birth. Conservatives now have legitimate reasons to distrust President Obama. First and foremost among these, his repeated fallacious claims regarding his proposals for health care reform.

One also has to wonder if they read polls over there at the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. If they did they would probably have noticed that the Tea-Party movement is currently polling better than both of the major political parties.
A shout-out for shoddy journalism should also go to CNN reporter Kristi Keck for putting up a tub-thumper for the Democratic Party and selling him as an unbiased political analyst. Then again, if ABC can get away with it, putting George Stephanopoulos on the air every week, then I'm sure Keck will be just fine.


- Dan

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Dean Gets Crazy...er.

When Chris Matthews starts making sense, you know the Left has officially jumped the shark.

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O.F.A. Propaganda for the Obama Supporter Who'll Believe Anything.

Here's the first sentence of the e-mail that the White House's organizing arm "Organizing For America" sent to it's supporters today.

Albert --

Yesterday's disappointing election results show deep discontent with the pace of change. I know the OFA community and the President share that frustration.

This of course implying that people aren't upset with Obama and his "progressive" agenda.

Noooooooo! The voters of Massachusetts were clearly upset that the Obama Administration hasn't federalized the Health Care system fast enough!

They don't just want some terrorists to get civilian show trials in New York City! Uh-uh! Bay State voters were sending the message that they won't rest until every single accused terrorist has had his day in a New York City courtroom!

"Damn you Barack Obama! What haven't you spent more taxpayer money?!!!"

Wow! That's some audacious propaganda right there OFA! And many members of OFA are just delusional enough to believe it.

It's one thing if Obama's trying to pull the wool over the eyes of independent voters in order to garner support for an otherwise unpopular agenda. It's a very bad sign however when you have to try and convince your most dedicated supporters not to jump ship and you do so by telling them that the message that Massachusett's voters sent, was the complete opposite of what they were actually trying to say.

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The Massachusetts Tsunami

Given the current situation in Hispaniola, it may be a bit insensitive to use the term “political earthquake” to describe what will happen to the Democratic Party if Scott Brown ends up pulling off the political upset of the decade in the bluest of deep-blue states next week.

Whatever you want to call it, a victory will be all of the proof one requires to see that the recent liberal ascension was a farce and it will put a stopper in the progressive agenda for at least the next 7 years.

So do your part. Go here and donate $5 to Scott Brown’s campaign.

Next Tuesday night could mark the beginning of the end for Barack Obama and his liberal agenda. Even if Brown loses a close race, it’s a very good sign for our prospects in November.

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Man Of The Decade: George W. Bush

Damn Straight!

by Dan Calabrese

suppose some will agree with a mouthful of ashes: “Damn right Bush is the man of the decade – a decade that sucked!”

As you prefer. But the argument here is that George W. Bush ought to be the man of the aughts mostly for the right reasons. I would also argue that he is smack dab at the center of what was best and worst about this decade.


The best, because Bush was a rare president who saw governing as a higher calling than his own political self-preservation. This frustrated his opponents – who couldn’t intimidate him with polls and attacks – as well as many of his supporters, who couldn’t get him to fight back with the sort of ferocity it seemed might be necessary to fend off attacks from Democrats and the media.

The worst, because Bush’s presidency is a good example of how willing people were in the decade now past to believe the hints, innuendos and impressions they received from the popular discourse, without really thinking for themselves.

After twice cutting taxes in his first term, Bush ran for re-election with a strong, growing, job-creating economy. And yet his opponents and the media continued to insist that the economy was terrible. (For a real bad economy, see: Now.) For the most part, the public believed this nonsense, and seemed to re-elect Bush in spite of an economy that was actually quite good.

The public was willing to believe the conventional wisdom that Bush had alienated our allies, in spite of the fact that he had allies working with us on all kinds of innovative and effective counter-terrorism measures, and had good personal relationships with most world leaders. The public had no idea what kind of progress Bush made with world trade markets and opening up emerging parts of the world like Indonesia.

They just kept hearing on the news every night that the whole world hated us because of Bush, and they believed it.

They believed lots of other things. They believed Guantanamo Bay was a torture hell that needed to be shut down at the earliest opportunity, and didn’t start to believe the opposite until they elected a president who actually tried to do what they thought they wanted, and they started to realize Bush had been right.

And yet, in spite of the 29 percent approval rating with which he left office, Bush accomplished a lot. Throughout most of his presidency, unemployment hovered around a ridiculously low 5 percent, even as Democrats howled that it was somehow too high. If unemployment came in at 5 percent tomorrow, Democrats would throw the party of the millennium.

He ended the reign of terror of Saddam Hussein, ended Mohmmar Khadafy’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, marginalized Yasser Arafat in the Middle East and, best of all, accomplished all this over the objections of the United Nations, which he righteously told where it could stick its objections.


Bush was not perfect, and he was not effective at pushing through every good idea he had. But it counts for a lot in my book that he tried to do desperately necessary things most politicians are afraid to do.

He was the first president who took a serious crack at trying to reform Social Security, the third rail of American politics. He tried to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration. He tried as far back as 2003 to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Now, he would deserve a hell of a lot more credit if he had actually gotten these initiatives through Congress. But it’s never made sense to me that the one politician who had the courage to propose these things is blamed because the pantywaist cowards on Capitol Hill – mainly worthless pieces of crap from his own party – couldn’t muster the courage to get behind him on them.

If the departed and unlamented GOP Congress had possessed half the courage of George W. Bush, we’d be drilling in Alaska, setting up privatized Social Security accounts and maybe, just maybe, not picking up the pieces of an obliterated mortgage market.

Conservatives hold a grudge against Bush for the explosion of federal spending during his administration. This is an area where I believe he should have fought harder.

But there are some worthwhile arguments to make in Bush’s defense here. The vast majority of the increase in federal spending came from legally mandated, formulaic increases in entitlement spending, which Bush could not have stopped absent an overall reform in the entitlement programs, and from war spending. As Bush found out in 2005, Congress wouldn’t touch entitlements, and whether you liked it or not, Bush believed the right approach to fighting wars was to simply spend whatever it took.

Granted, Bush contributed to the problem with the Medicaid Part D expansion, although it can be said in his defense that at least it’s one of the few federal entitlement programs that actually seems to be working well for its recipients.

To the extent that the big-spending GOP Congress contributed to the spending spree in the areas of discretionary domestic spending, many criticize Bush for refusing to veto these budgets. I think he should have too. But if Bush felt he could only spend his political capital in certain areas, and he chose the war as his hill to die on, it’s hard to argue with that.

Supposedly Bush feared that taking on the Republican Congress publicly over their free-spending ways would create a media cause celebre that would help hand Congress back to the Democrats. If that was his thinking, it was obviously a political miscalculation. But I can’t repeat often enough that a Republican Congress never should have presented a Republican president with such a dilemma. They had the power of the purse. They could have exercised their power responsibly. They did not wish to do so.

Bush made other mistakes. He appointed Ben Bernanke to lead the Federal Reserve. He imposed steel tariffs for a brief time in 2001. He pushed through his own ineffective “stimulus,” although it was a pittance compared to Barack Obama’s, and at least Bush’s went directly to the American people instead of being plowed into pork boondoggles. He tried to put Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court, although he redeemed himself with his other choices.

And of course, it’s easy to forget now the courage, strength and resolve he exuded in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. When Bush quoted Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer in imploring the country, “Let’s roll,” you knew that he would follow his words with real action. And he did.

But a debate on the wisdom of Bush’s choices, or on the effectiveness of his style of governance, could last forever, and surely will.

In my mind, one thing sets Bush apart, and earns him the honor of representing the best of this decade: He did what he believed was right, without regard to polls or political consequences. Whether that applied to policy on embryonic stem cells or the war in Iraq, Bush was no finger-in-the-wind politician.

He was a leader. He led with class, grace and compassion. He may or may not have been a “true conservative,” whatever the hell that is supposed to mean, but he understood the presidency, and he understood this country. And he understood that he held the office to serve the interests of the people, not to serve his own.

A lot of things were wrong with the decade now passing. But the fact that Bush was president for most of it was one of the really good things. I realize not much of the public has thought so in recent years, although I suspect many are now starting to appreciate what they used to have, and are starting to ask, “Why exactly was it that we didn’t like him?”

And thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if we had him back now.

Oh, and Dick Cheney too.

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