Imagine how the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media would have reacted if Republicans had succeeded in blocking the “stimulus” and the economy remained in the doldrums.  If the Republicans blamed the majority party for inaction, they would accuse us of hypocrisy while lecturing us on the evils of Republican obstructionism.

Although the “stimulus” passed, it has not worked as advertised, job losses continue to mount to levels far higher than those the Administration had forecast.  While the economic picture remains bleak, at least we can take some satisfaction in being proven right.

But, despite his best efforts (with the media covering for him), the unhappy Barney Frank cannot say the same thing about Republican efforts reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  You see, slthough then-President Bush repeatedly called for reform of the two government-sponsored mortgage giants, Democrats succeeded blocking Republican reforms.

And now with a report fingering Frank and others who thwarted such reforms, the mean-spirited man from Massachusetts continues to dodge responsibility and do what he always does when criticized, blame Republicans:

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who comes under some criticism in the GOP report, has said more foreclosures were caused by unregulated entities rather than Fannie and Freddie. He has also noted that Republicans were in control of Congress from 1995 to 2007, when the housing bubble was created.

Yup, the unhappy man is right.  Republicans were in control, but he did everything in his power to prevent them from using that control to pass legislation he didn’t like.  His obstructionism served a double purpose (1) preventiing Republicans from implementing policies Barney didn’t like and (2) blaming Republicans for their failure if things went south.

Barney just didn’t want to risk having Republican policies succeed.

I’m sure Barney would be singing a different tune if Republicans had blocked the “stimulus.”

I’ve been disappointed with the response I have received from my earlier post on Sarah Palin and what her seeming withdrawl from politics may mean for the cause of individual responsibility and freedom in America.

Most have treated it as an opportunity to opine on her chances and what her exit may mean to the party and/or it’s/her chances for 2012. I think, however, my disappointment is in my own lack of clarity.

Perhaps I could put a finer point on it and hopefully spark a conversation on the idea I’m looking to develop:

How can we, as conservatives, help promote and develop within our Ameican society a sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance that will further the ideals of our Nation’s founding?

We’ve seen over the past decade or so how Republicans as well as Democrats have escalated the size, cost, and intrusion of the Federal government. Yet far too often we trouble ourselves with the details and tactics of politics and getting people elected or ousted. Secondarily only do we concern ourselves with the anti-liberty policies these people pass (and by then, far too late).

In the end (frankly, in the beginning), it really comes down to promoting these ideals that will move the proper agenda forward. Believe me, with the right thinking again in America, the question of who is elected will hardly be a matter of concern.

So the question becomes: What sort of work can we do to develop a new sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance in our Nation? What can we do to promote the concept that the answers to our problems lie within the individual rather than in the government?

How can we begin A New Independence Movement in America?

Thoughts?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot), from HQ

This came out last week, but I just haven’t able to get to it.  So finally, here it is.  And it is quite a nice write-up, to my surprise.

GayPatriot:  Admittedly, many liberal gays probably would prefer to surround themselves with others who love the idea of universal health care and roar loudly for hate-crimes legislation.  But Bruce Carroll and Dan Blatt at GayPatriot challenge all LGBT folks to question their leaders — political and not — and the issues that identify them. Though we might not agree with everything said there, GayPatriot provokes conversation, which all good political blogs should do. Besides, the greater GOP is not exactly in high regard right now, and the party’s gays and their allies may be the ones who whip out the defibrillators to revive the compassionate heart of the Right.  Technorati rank: 5,340

I’m encouraged that perhaps the gay media (or at least one outlet) has finally started to come around and recognize the place that a gay conservative voice has in the world of political discourse.

It also does my heart a lot of good to see our Technorati rank at 5,340.  While Michael Rogers’ Blogactive sits way down at a Technorati rank of 40,107.   Bwa-ha-ha-ha. Sorry, had to do it.

Thanks again to the folks at The Advocate for talkin’ us up!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

John Fund has an interesting piece on WSJ this morning about the reasons for Sarah Palin’s abdication of the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau last week. Part of his theory goes that she was fed up with all the negative attention, and, lacking the naked and cut-throat desire for power and influence, she simply hung it up.

Of course, her decision has drawn criticism from all sides. Those who have believed in her find it a disappointment that she’s left politics. Many who supported her are scratching their heads, wondering if the ‘ploy’ will pay off for 2012 (or maybe 2016). Of course, many of her detractors are filled with glee that they’ve sent her running for the North Shore (among them, few who could fathom that she is being sincere–after all, who in her right mind wouldn’t want to run for high office? Here’s a hint: There are people who don’t think like you.)

Anyway, this kind of hit me when a friend mentioned to me today that he wished we could find a “hero” in politics these days, lamenting the feet of clay even the vaunted seem to have. This got me to thinking…

I wish more people would find themselves to be heroes rather than hoping for one (least of all from the government) in somebody else. Perhaps that’s what the problem is these days: Instead of being fully-functional and independent individuals, we’ve become accustomed to expecting someone else to help lift us up, whether literally with our lot in life or simply lifting our spirits.

Bailouts, take-overs, ‘universal healthcare’, etc. These are symptoms of a society wherein too few take responsibility for themselves.

Frankly, I’d be satisfied with a leader who says, “Enough is enough! Start taking care of yourselves and your families!”

Not that I’m foreswearing all heroes, and certainly I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t look up to those who have done great things. But perhaps Sarah Palin can (if this is what she chooses to do) serve as an example of someone who shows Americans that they can be the ones to make the “Changes” that they want to see, and that they can do so without being (or depending on) a member of the government. In turn, those “Hoping” for “Change” won’t feel the need to elect those who will bring it about (and thus subject us all to their whims), but can do it themselves.

Kind of like a “community organizer” without delusions of grandeur.

What do y’all think?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot), From Southern Command.

LawDork has the scoop:

Attorney General Martha Coakley will announce the details of a lawsuit that her office has filed challenging the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as it relates to Massachusetts.  Currently, 16,000 married same-sex Massachusetts couples are unfairly denied federal benefits under this act.

More to follow, of course….

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Recalling that during the Bush Administration, it was “un-American, as well as prohibited to question the patriotism of those attempting to undermine a war effort,” blogger Dan Riehl finds my Congressman, ever eager to frustrate Republican efforts at reform, now criticizing Republicans for attempting to do to Democratic legislation today what he did to Republican legislation when the GOP was in the majority:

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who has had an eventful couple of weeks to say the least, believes House Republican opposition to climate change legislation and the stimulus indicates they’re cheering against the good ol’ US of A.

“It appears that the Republican Party leadership in the Congress has made a decision that they want to deny President Obama success, which means, in my mind, they are rooting against the country, as well,” the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman told WAMU radio host Diane Rehm on Tuesday morning, promoting his new book, “The Waxman Report.”

(Emphasis added.)

By Waxman’s own standard then, those who attempted to deny President Bush success were rooting against the country.  Looks like both he and his mean-spirited colleague from Massachusetts, the unhappy Barney Frank, spent a lot of time these past eight years rooting against the country.

Who will hold them to account?

Every now again, I have a brainstorm, an idea which just comes to me and it seems brilliant at the time.  If it comes to me when I’m driving, I try to remember it so I can scribble it down when I stop.  Occasionally by the time I stop, I find that the idea has dissipated and left barely a trace, if that.  There’s just the faint recollection of having had an idea.

Sometimes, when I do turn such ideas into blog posts, they generate more interest than pieces I have thought out–or otherwise worked on–for some time. Other times, no one pays them much attention.

I had such a thought yesterday as I was leaving San Francisco, an idea which I tacked onto the end of my last post so I could incorporate the notion into the title, but now, with the idea returning again–even though I haven’t scribbled it down, I’m thinking it deserves a post of its own.  Maybe I’m onto something.  Or maybe not.

Anyone who has spent any time in gay circles has met the man-hating lesbian, a subspecies of lesbian who seem to love women only because they hate men.  Most lesbians I’ve met have no problem with men as long as they don’t have to sleep with us.  Over the years, I’ve only occasionally met a gay man who didn’t like women.  Oh, I’ve heard stories about a few, but off hand, can only think of two.  Most of us not only like women, but seem to particularly delight in the company of strong women.

As I left San Francisco, it struck me how certain gay male bloggers who have led the attacks on Sarah Palin were equally shrill in their denunciations of Hillary Clinton when she was still running for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Back then, now over a year ago, I dismissed accusations against Hillary’s foes of misogyny as just sour groups. I mean, I opposed her because she was so far to the left. Couldn’t others also have principled objections to a female politician?

And yet with the intensity of attacks on Sarah Palin, I began to reconsider my past dismissal of the Clinton supporters’ complaint.   It wasn’t just Hillary Clinton–or Sarah Palin–they hated, but instead the very idea of a strong successful woman who commands the attention of men. (more…)

This morning before leaving San Francisco (I’m now back in LA), while my nephew was having his morning nap, I scanned the blogs and read (some of my) e-mail.  One thing which stayed in my mind for the first part of my drive (until I started listening to Ronald C. White Jr’s biography of  Lincoln on CD) was John Fund’s thoughts on Sarah Palin’s “Death by a Thousand FOIAs”as he put it his piece for WSJ.com’s Political Diary (available by subscription):

“Attacks inside Alaska and largely invisible to the national media had paralyzed her administration,” someone close to the governor told me. “She was fully aware she would be branded a ‘quitter.’ She did not want to disappoint her constituents, but she was no longer able to do the job she had been elected to do. Essentially, the taxpayers were paying for Sarah to go to work every day and defend herself.”

This situation developed because Alaska’s transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable.

Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy. Since Ms. Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, some 150 FOIA requests have been filed and her office has been targeted for investigation by everyone from the FBI to the Alaska legislature. Most have centered on Ms. Palin’s use of government resources, and to date have turned up little save for a few state trips that she agreed to reimburse the state for because her children had accompanied her. In the process, though, she accumulated $500,000 in legal fees in just the last nine months, and knew the bill would grow ever larger in the future.

Just a few days before this good woman announced her impending resignation as Governorof the great state of Alaska, Jim Geraghty, noting Todd Purdum’s mentioning those ethics complaints in his Vanity Fair hit piece on the Republican, broughtd up something Mr. Purdum appeared to have neglected:

The fact that Palin is now 15 for 15 in having those “formal ethics complaints” dismissed as groundless would seem to be somewhat relevant. Come on, man. You can think Sarah Palin is a terrible governor, and should never have been McCain’s running mate, etc., and still think these frivolous complaints are an expensive waste of everyone’s time.

The mere fact that these complaints were filed–even if they lacked merit (as has each one that has been filed) allows journalists with an agenda to suggest that the good Governor (as the politically correct might put it) is ethically challenged.

These people in filing these complaints are out destroy Palin at all costs, no matter what the means.  As a result, as Glenn puts it, she has been “been subjected — along with her family — to more abuse than any other non-national-officeholder I can think of.”

Once again, their obsession with this good woman says more about them than it does about her.   I’m now beginning to wonder at the misogyny of certain gay men obsessed with Sarah Palin, particularly those who attacked Hillary with similar venom when she vying for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

This is a “repost” from my Twitter account:

$50 says Jacko is still alive and will burst out of his casket with Bubbles and Macaulay Culkin and burst into song while fireworks explode.

I half-expect it to happen.  Only MJ could get away with it too.  Mostly.

In the meantime, real heroes are dying in ever increasing numbers in Afghanistan — Obama’s War.

“Mr. Jackson received days of wall-to-wall coverage in the media,” Martha Gillis wrote to the Washington Post. “Where was the coverage of my nephew or the other soldiers who died that week?”

Gillis’ nephew, Lt. Brian Bradshaw, 24, died in Kheyl, Afganistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Bradshaw, of Steilacoom, Wash., was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division in Fort Richardson, Alaska. He was one of at least 13 U.S. soldiers to die in Afghanistan since Jackson’s death on June 25.

Since January 20, 2009, over 70 American servicemen have died in Afghanistan.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Just before setting off for San Francisco, I skimmed Peter Wehner’s piece in Commentary where he probed something other conservative pundits and bloggers (including yours truly) have observed, the contrast between the President’s description of himself and his actual record–and even rhetoric.

Obama, as Wehner puts it, portrays

. . . himself as America’s philosopher-king, the person standing not only above country but above politics itself [who is] uniquely able to transcend old, tired, and rutted debates, to think anew, and to bring a fresh, creative approach to the problems of our time.

Yet, the Democrat repeatedly dismisses Republicans as offering only “tired,” “worn” and “old” ideas, often misrepresenting those ideas by reducing the range of GOP proposals to tax cuts:

You got a problem with health care: tax cuts. You got problem with education: tax cuts. You got a problem with the economy: tax cuts. Poverty: tax cuts. That’s not a policy, it’s a dogma, a tired and cynical philosophy.

At the same time, he offers ideas which are little more than the recycled liberalism of the past three-quarters of a century or so–increase government spending and federal regulation.  So, we could paraphrase Obama to criticize his own record in office:

You got a problem with health care: more government spending & increased regulation. You got problem with education: more government spending & increased regulation. You got a problem with the economy: more government spending & increased regulation. Poverty:  more government spending & increased regulation.  That’s not a policy, it’s a dogma, a tired and cynical philosophy.

And in each case where he proposes a solution, he’s adopting a policy which has been tried before, either here or abroad–and has failed.

Yes, his predecessor did propose tax cuts without corresponding cuts in federal domestic expenditures, but other Republicans, including his 2008 rival for the White House, have proposed far more comprehensive policies.

If he were truly the transcendent politician he claims to be, he would regularly  do (as he has done on occasion) and acknowledge that conservatives have put forward such policies and criticize their proposals on the merits.  He also should address the failures of past policies similar to his own and demonstrate how he has adapted these ideas to contemporary circumstances, so as to guarantee their success this time around.

Right now, all we see is the same tired, old statist solutions.

It would be nice if the president based his proposals on policies which actually succeeded.

While I initially found candidate Barack Obama a compelling figure, as least year’s campaign wore on, I found the Democrat was more like Gertrude Stein’s description of Oakland, “There is no there there.”

His briefly celebrated speech on race followed the revelations of the racism and conspiracy theories of his pastor (for twenty years) has long since been forgotten save by the most zealous of his acolytes.  His platform was little more than warmed over liberalism (as one of his most fervent admirers described his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention).  He hadn’t really accomplished anything before his election as President.  His rhetoric about being a “new kind” of politician who transcended partisan divisions stood in stark contrast to his record.

So, to those who so love the man, please tell me what is it about him which so inspires you?  Why do you have such confidence in his ability to lead?  Too often though when I ask this question of his supporters, they’re recite campaign boilerplate to contrast him to his predecessor.

So, make the case for Obama without attacking George W. Bush or any Republican for that matter.  I’m curious to hear why so many are so enthusiastic about a man with so little in the way of substantial accomplishments.

He’s baffled by those who think her her resignation is “a political masterstroke“:  

How does resigning as governor strengthen her as a presidential candidate?

He wonders why she doesn’t serve out her term, but notes that “the volume of hate and vitriol directed at her has been stunning.”

Whatever the real reason for her resignation, it has kept her in the news over the Fourth of July weekend, no small feat, given all the competing stories.  It does seem to be news-heavy summer.

I’m going to withhold final judgment on Sarah Palin’s decision to step down as Governor of Alaska until we see exactly why she made the choice.

 Right now, I find myself somewhat sympathetic to Russ Douthat’s view:

A Sarah Palin who stepped down for the sake of her family and her media-swarmed state deserves sympathy even from the millions of Americans who despise her. A Sarah Palin who resigned in the delusional belief that it would give her a better shot at the presidency in 2012 warrants no such kindness.

(It’s a good piece and I highly recommend it.)

Perhaps, it’s because I’ve been spending time these past few days with my sister and watching her delight in her maternity,* I “sense” that Governor Palin wants to spend more time with her children–and grandchild.   After all, her youngest daughter is just eight years old and her baby Trig is just fourteen months.

Kids that young require lots of attention.

Sarah Palin is relatively young (politically speaking).   She can wait until 2016 or 2020 to run for President.  She can put off her political career, but she can’t put off her maternal one.

* (more…)

As hundreds of thousands of Americans (including my co-blogger) rallied across the country in Tea Parties, protesting larger, more intrusive government and higher taxes, it seems that a growing number of their fellow citizens share their sentiments.

Michelle linked a new Gallup survey confirming something which polling data over the past few months has been making manifest, Americans are moving to the right:

Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven’t changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.

Guess people needed to see liberalism in action.  Or maybe now that there is no longer an ostensibly conservative party in power not adhering to conservative ideals, it becomes easier for the Americans to reassert their natural conservative instincts.

So, once again in an era of big government, conservative ideas are becoming ascendant.    Thus, it behooves the GOP to reassert Reaganite ideas and stand true to our core principles.

Should we do that, we may well win back our majorities in Congress — and state legislatures.

UPDATE:  Commenting on this poll, John Hinderaker offers:

. . . .voters tend to turn to the “outs” when they become fed up with the “ins.” It appears that not too many voters were fed up with the Republicans because the party was too conservative. Nevertheless, there was enough dissatisfaction with Republican governance that the other guys got a shot. It seems reasonable to expect that the Democrats might wear out their welcome sooner than the Republicans did, since, in addition to the usual grievances that accumulate and erode support for the party in power, the Democrats are taking the country in a direction where the voters don’t particularly want it to go.

Emphasis added. Read the whole thing!

IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? “Coffee May Reverse Alzheimer’s.”

Guess that settles the question about getting a refill.

It seems serendipitously synchronous that I’ve been reading Jamie Glazov’s United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror during a week in which Sarah Palin has been back in the headlines.  In the first half of his book, Glazov details the political pilgrimages various intellectuals, artists and assorted left-wingers have made over the years to tyrannies and proclaimed their rulers to be enlightened despots, describing those brutal tyrants in terms mythologies reserved for deities and heroes of ancient legend.

They did not portray Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh or Fidel Castro as not the actual man who respectively presided over Russia, China, North Vietnam and Cuba, but the heroic figure of their imagination.  The political pilgrims just projected characteristics of an imaginary, benevolent wise man onto the actual presence of a tyrant who was trying to remake a nation in the image of the ideology to which he subscribed.  The intellectuals saw each tyrant as they wanted to see him, eager to have a ruler adversarial to their nation embody all the noble qualities they found lacking in their own leaders.

And just as they project benign qualities onto our nation’s adversaries, they project malign ones onto conservative leaders in the United States.  From Ronald Reagan to Sarah Palin, charismatic conservatives have been a particular object of their scorn.

Governor Palin’s resignation has become yet another chance to just how obsessed they have become with this good woman.   Just consider all the conspiracy theories they are spinning about theabout her recent decision.  They don’t seem to allow facts to interfere with their analysis.

Just as the Zorastranians had a benign (Ahura Mazda) and maleficent (Angra Mainyu) deity, so do today’s liberals have their benign and malign deities, yet, unlike followers of this ancient tradition, they  describe real life human beings in terms the faithful reserved for beings who did not no longer assumed human form on this earth.

Just wonder at how they refused to let go of Mrs. Palin even when her ticket was defeated last fall and she departed from the national stage.  What is it about her which gets them so upset and causes them to spin so many conspiracy theories?

Seems I’ve inspired the Youngest PatriotNephewWest to ponder the mysteries of the universe:

Or maybe that’s just what happens when you snuggle up in Daddy’s arms while your favorite uncle sits nearby.

In one of the best posts (or articles for that matter) on Sarah Palin’s decision to step down as Governor of Alaska, Josh Painter writes on RedState:

News about Gov. Palin that comes out of the 49th state tends to be the bad, as the media is not very interested in disseminating the good. Her accomplishments tend to go unnoticed or quickly get pushed off of the screen in favor of the sensational. Recall her trip to Texas to conclude the deal which brought ExxonMobil into a cooperative agreement with TransCanada to get Gov. Palin’s pet pipeline project off the ground. She granted interviews to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and NBC’s Matt Lauer, but both were more interested in getting her to talk about David Letterman’s hot air than Alaska’s natural gas.

Emphasis added.  (Oh, and read the whole thing.)

If this is true that Palin granted these interviews to talk about the pipeline deal, something she actually accomplished when doing her job as chief executive of the Last Frontier, and those two journalists chose to focus instead on that media sideshow, then this anecdote becomes truly emblematic of the way the media has treated Sarah Palin.  They’re not interested in her record.*  They’re interested rather in the sensational aspects of her story.

No wonder so many intelligent and otherwise well-informed people treat Sarah Palin they would a celebrity regularly featured in the tabloids.  They know almost nothing about her actual record as Governor of Alaska because the media hasn’t reported her accomplishments, treating Palin instead as they would a pop culture phenomenon.

Those on the left might be better informed if they didn’t limit themselves to the MSM.  At least FoxNews and the conservative media reported her accomplishments.

* (more…)

Why else would he now want talks with President Obama?  (H/t Gateway Pundit.)

Recall, that first as candidate, then as President, the Democrat offered to meet with the Iranian oligarch without conditions and Ahmadinejad wouldn’t give him the time of day. Now, in the wake of his government’s violent suppression of popular demonstrations against his supposed reelection, it’s clear his regime lacks the legitimacy many assumed it had.

We now know that the Iranian people do not support the regime.

Let us hope that, given that violent suppression, our president knows better than to agree to such a meeting.  I doubt the Iranian would have talked about such a meeting if he did not feel threatened by the protests by his people.  Perhaps, he seeks the legitimacy from world leaders than he cannot find at home.

UPDATE:  Here is another sign why Ahmadinejad might feel less secure than he once did, a leading clerical group is at odds with the oligarch’s religious patron over the election.  A split seems to be emerging among the nation’s clerics:

The most important group of religious leaders in Irancalled the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate on Saturday, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.

A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final.

Jus’ wonderin’.