Featured Posts
  • Romney Calls Santorum the ‘D’ Word

    Romney Calls Santorum the 'D' Word

    Mitt Romney believes that his best line of attack is making the claim that he has not spent a moment as a D.C. politician while his two main opponents, Newt ...

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  • Holy Rick Santorum, Batman!

    Holy Rick Santorum, Batman!

    No two ways about it, Rick Santorum had a good night. Not only did he sweep Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri but he also got off the best line of the ...

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  • “We the Rich…”

    We the Rich...

    Few would argue the fact that Citizens United has been a major player in the Republican primary...and many if not most would concede that none of it has been healthy ...

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  • A Romney Victory Is Ensured With Trump’s Endorsement ()

    A Romney Victory Is Ensured With Trump's Endorsement ()

    As if you needed another reason to not vote Romney. Celebrity business magnate Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney for president Thursday, telling reporters he will not mount an independent campaign if ...

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  • Why I Love Newt Gingrich

    Why I Love Newt Gingrich

    In a perfect world, the Republican contest to find a nominee to face Barack Obama would go on forever...or at least until August. You cannot attach a number to the ...

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  • Republican Cannibalism

    Republican Cannibalism

    I suspect there are a ton of conservatives secretly agreeing with Begala and while it's too early in the game for Dems to get cocky, it's difficult to not smile ...

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  • Romney Hood

    Romney Hood

    One of our readers sent me an email with an idea for an illustration - Mitt Romney as Romney Hood. I thought it was brilliant and came up with the ...

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  • Why Do People Take an Instant Dislike To Newt Gingrich?

    Why Do People Take an Instant Dislike To Newt Gingrich?

    Quotes don't get much better than this one by Bob Dole. "Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?" asked a perplexed Gingrich, to whom Dole bluntly ...

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  • Gingrich Takes A Thrashing

    Gingrich Takes A Thrashing

    After the beating Gingrich took last night, it's hard to imagine under what scenario he can make a comeback.  Florida is going to Romney and for Gingrich to regain the ...

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  • SOTU

    SOTU

    There's a lot out there on the President's SOTU, so I'll keep my thoughts short and sweet. The speech did what it had to do which was target liberals and independents ...

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  • Just Another GOP Debate

    Just Another GOP Debate

    The highlights from last night's debate. - Newt Gingrich can't wait to become president so he can revisit the early 60s and overthrow Castro in Cuba. War, baby, war. - Santorum, who ...

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  • No More Mister Nice Guy for Mitt Romney

    No More Mister Nice Guy for Mitt Romney

    It appears that the South Carolina verdict is forcing Romney to start taking Gingrich seriously. “We’re not choosing a talk show host, we’re choosing a leader,” Romney said, saying that their ...

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  • Mike Huckabee Solidifies His Birther Creds

    Mike Huckabee Solidifies His Birther Creds

    Mike Huckabee offers advice to Mitt Romney concerning his unreleased tax returns. Let him [Romney] make this challenge: "I'll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and ...

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  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    Via Political Humor... "Mitt Romney is coming under fire because even though he is a multimillionaire, he only paid 15 percent in taxes. That's not a tax, that's barely a tip." ...

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  • The Last Word On Jon Huntsman

    The Last Word On Jon Huntsman

    Good line. My guess is that after Romney fails to beat Obama in the general, Huntsman will be back in 2016.  The most electable guy in the field and he could ...

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  • Does Romney Urinate Straight Down His Leg?

    Does Romney Urinate Straight Down His Leg?

    I found this pretty funny...and accurate. It comes from a reader over at Balloon Juice. So, let’s review. The contenders for the GOP nomination are A vulture capitalist who believes that any ...

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  • The Constitution – Libertarian’s False Idol

    The Constitution - Libertarian's False Idol

    Lively little debate going on at one of last week's posts with Libertarianism put under the microscope. ocLiberal: I know I am in sketchy territory here, (start the indignant shouting now) but ...

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  • Gingrich’s Delusional Politics

    Gingrich's Delusional Politics

    In the contest to determine the winner of the Far-Right Politics gold medal, rack up a few more points for Newt Gingrich. “I think an intelligent conservative wants the right federal ...

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  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    Via Political Humor... "Congratulations to Mitt Romney. He won the New Hampshire primary last night. See, this is proof that even the multimillionaire son of a multimillionaire can beat the odds ...

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  • What Do North Korea and Indiana Have In Common?

    What Do North Korea and Indiana Have In Common?

    Story 1: North Korea punishing those who 'didn't display enough sadness over Kim Jong Il's death' North Korean authorities are reportedly punishing citizens who did not display enough sadness over the death ...

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Going Down The Road Of NO

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Conservative David Frum on where Republican’s “no, no, no policy” has left the party.

The furious rejectionist frenzy of the past 12 months is exacting a terrible price upon Republicans. We’re getting worse and less conservative results out of Washington than we could have negotiated, if we had negotiated.

As is, we’re betting heavily that a bad economy will collapse Democratic support without us having to lift a finger. Maybe that will happen. But existing party strategy has to be reckoned a terrible failure. Most Republicans will shrug off that news. If polls are right, rank-and-file Republicans feel little regard for the Washington party, and don’t expect much from it. But it’s the rank-and-file who are the problem here! Republican leaders do not dare try deals for fear of being branded sell-outs by a party base that wants war to the knife. So we got war. And we’re losing. Even if we gain seats in 2010, the actions of this congressional session will not be reversed. Shrink Medicare after it has expanded? Hey- we said we’d never do that.

I hear a lot of talk about the importance of “principle.” But what’s the principle that obliges us to be stupid?

This is what happens when a party allows demagogues like Palin and Limbaugh to speak for it.

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Tea Party Politics

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Rasmussen polled the following question:

“Okay, suppose the Tea Party Movement organized itself as a political party. When thinking about the next election for Congress, would you vote for the Republican candidate from your district, the Democratic candidate from your district, or the Tea Party candidate from your district?”

The numbers came in at:

Democratic 36%, Tea Party 23%, Republican 18%.

Rasmussen goes on to analyze what conclusions we can draw from the data.

“In practical terms, it is unlikely that a true third-party option would perform as well as the polling data indicates. The rules of the election process — written by Republicans and Democrats — provide substantial advantages for the two established major parties. The more conventional route in the United States is for a potential third-party force to overtake one of the existing parties.

To which, I ask…has the tea party movement not already taken over one of the existing parties?

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Shame On Us, Shame On Us

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I’m not a Mike Huckabee fan. While I can respect him as a man of devout Christian values, it leaves him in a position where one could easily doubt his ability to separate church and state. This country does not need another president who makes decisions based on what God told him the previous night.

All of that said, Huckabee is a thougthful and insightful man on many levels as he demonstrates here.

“When he [Barack Obama] was at Dover the other day, and went there to pay respect for soldiers, I heard a lot of people on the Right say “Aw, that’s just a cheap photo-op.” No, I think it was the Commander-in-Chief of our military paying respect to a dead soldier, and I’m grateful that he did that, and I was proud of him for doing that. And I think we all — as Americans — should give him credit for doing that.”

“When he and Michele hosted the tricker-treaters on Halloween, quit finding something wrong with that. Say “Good, I’m glad that he and the First Lady are treating children to an experience at the White House.” And I just find it deplorable that some people on my end of the aisle want to find everything wrong and nothing right about the man as a man.”

“I hated it when people did that to George Bush. They couldn’t even laugh at the man’s jokes they found something wrong with everything and if we do that to Barack Obama, then shame on us, shame on us. No wonder our country is so divided when that happens.”

Unfortunately for Huckabee, there are few people at his end of the aisle who would see it as he does. Republicans have made it painfully clear that the game plan is to take down Obama by not only obstructing every piece of legislation put forward by Dems but by also questioning the very legitimacy of his presidency.  And sadly, leading the concert is a right-wing media which abandoned honesty and integrity a long time ago.

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Republican Bloodbath in Florida in 2010?

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A house divided as David Frum explains.

The Republican fratricide in the Nov. 3 special election in upstate New York may prove just an opening round of an even more spectacular bloodbath in Florida in 2010.

In New York, Republican feuding lost the party a seat in the House of Representatives. At stake in Florida is not only a senatorship — but very possibly Republican hopes for 2012 as well.

The battle in Florida pits Gov. Charlie Crist against former Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio. Both men claim to be conservative, pro-life, tax cutters. On the issues, they would seem to agree far more than they disagree.

But on one issue they have disagreed passionately: President Obama’s fiscal stimulus. Squeezed by his state’s desperate fiscal condition, Crist endorsed and campaigned for the Obama stimulus. Inspired by his conservative ideology, Rubio opposed stimulus.

Now Rubio is the darling of conservatives nationwide.

We have another situation here where conservatives find the Republican candidate, Crist, too moderate for their liking and are backing the more conservative Rubio.  Rubio’s campaign is raking in money from around the country as conservatives rally behind their chosen one. Conservatives and Rubio have been relentless in their attacks on Crist’s acceptance of federal stimulus money.

But as Frum points out, Governor Crist is constitutionally bound to balance his state budget.

The final Obama plan granted Florida more than $15 billion over three years. That money averted radical cuts to schools and Medicaid. It saved the state from furloughing employees and raising taxes even higher. It has paid for emergency employment on roads and water projects. It has extended unemployment benefits for 700,000 Floridians — and put an extra $25 per week in their relief packets.

Every Republican governor has accepted stimulus money (except Palin and Sandford – both were on their way out). Frum asks…

Are all these Republican leaders, including such outstanding figures as Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, now disqualified for future races?

The most telling of all comes via this anecdote.

A few days ago, I was talking to a roomful of young conservatives about the crisis. All agreed in denouncing both the bank bailouts done under TARP and the stimulus. I asked: OK fine — what was the alternative?

There was a short pause, and then somebody laughed: “I guess it’s lucky that we weren’t in power.”

That’s not much of a motto for a would-be national governing coalition. If all we conservatives have to offer is oppositionism, then opposition is the job we’ll be assigned to fill.

Indeed.

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Conservatives – Working Hard To Retain Minority Status

quote of the day

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Dede Scozzafava, the Republican NY-23 candidate whose funding dried up after Sarah Palin and teabaggers endorsed the Conservative candidate, speaks out on her party’s fortunes.

“you have ideology that’s really not based on any sort of substance that can move an agenda forward, that can really help people in this country.”

“I don’t think it’s good for the health of our party. Any party that just tries to purge members that might have any sort of independent thinking, I think, eventually will run itself to very much of a minority status.”

I don’t think teabaggers are listening to Scozzafava. They’re currently working on defeating Charlie Crist in his attempt to win a Senate seat in Florida. There are also plans to run conservative candidates against any Republican they deem too moderate for their tastes.

From a Democratic perspective, Dick Armey and his teabagging FreedomWorks organization are doing them a big favor.

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