GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

What’s Gotten Into the GOP?

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I predicted it in December, and today, the House GOP completely caved in on the debt increase and presented Mr. Obama with a blank check to continue borrowing, printing, and spending the money to support the massive expenditures his FSA demands. Not even purely symbolic amendments for bipartisan committees on debt reduction or entitlement reform… which they could have embarrased Democrats into voting against… were offered. “This is not the time to fight,” said Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), trying out the GOP’s inspiring new 2014 campaign slogan.

Update: Mr. Paul Ryan and Mr. Eric Cantor were guests at the president’s lavish state dinner last night. (The one where Mrs. Obama wore the $12,000 designer dress.)  You might want to drop them a line on twitter and ask them how the caviar was.  (Paul Ryan on Twitter – @PRyan) (Eric Cantor on Twitter – @GOPLeader)

Analysts think the Republicans are just beaten down and exhausted, or that they don’t want to risk antagonizing the delicate sensibilities of the swing voters their highly paid consultants tell them are the key to holding onto their phoney baloney jobs. (Base? What base?) There is another possible explanation.

Maybe the GOP has gone L.I.B. (Let It Burn).

Imagine you’re a GOP congressman, and you know full well the country is on an unsustainable fiscal and economic course. You look at the 2012 election as the last chance to turn the country around; and the country (expressed in terms of stupid people voting in large numbers) said, “We don’t want to turn around, we want to burn!”

You can see two predictable outcomes to this course; tyranny or collapse (probably one followed by the other).

Having reached that conclusion, your next rational course of action might be self-preservation. This can take the form of not antagonizing the people who are likely to be running the forthcoming tyranny. It might also mean making as much money as you can now to insulate yourself against collapse later.

If you look at the current behavior of the GOP as self-preservation in the face of imminent catastrophe, it makes perfect sense why they are submitting completely to the Democrats, and seeking to make as much money as they can off their big, rich donors. (Paul Ryan, especially, seems to be angling for a lucrative position at the US Chamber of Commerce.)

[Read more…]

Tom Coburn: My Hero

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In today’s Washington Examiner, Philip Klein reports that even as “residents of his home state recover from the devastating tornado”,

Sen. Tom Coburn deserves credit for sticking with his position that all emergency aid spending should be offset.

“He’s always had the same position since the Oklahoma City bombing,” Coburn spokesman John Hart wrote in an email. “We should offset disaster aid by sacrificing less vital areas of the budget.”

Coburn, Klein reminds us, has, in the past, insisted that northeastern disaster relief should be offset by spending cuts elsewhere.

But by remaining consistent even when his own state has been at the receiving end of a brutal storm, Coburn gives more credibility to the limited government position.

Kudos, Senator. Would be nice if more elected officials followed your lead, reminding us that federal funds are limited and the government should prioritize its spending.

Just as do most Americans.

GOP needs to “effectively address” working/middle class concerns

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Earlier this morning, caught a good piece from Byron York on why winning the Hispanic vote would not be enough to secure a GOP presidential victory.  Here’s the crucial paragraph:

But here is the real solution. Romney lost because he did not appeal to the millions of Americans who have seen their standard of living decline over the past decades. They’re nervous about the future. When Romney did not address their concerns, they either voted for Obama or didn’t vote at all. If the next Republican candidate can address their concerns effectively, he will win. And, amazingly enough, he’ll win a lot more Hispanic votes in the process. A lot from other groups, too.

Read the whole thing.  Did recall reading something about a year ago on Mitt Romney’s failure to appeal to working class votes disaffected from the incumbent administration.  York is right; the next Republican candidate needs to effectively address their concerns.

Part of the answer, ironically enough (given the premise of York’s piece), lies in a piece Jill Lawrence published last week in the National Journal, a piece on Republicans’ challenges with Hispanic voters.  Lawrence cited a focus group whose participants . . .

liked what they heard about Medicaid, immigration, economics, and education in clips from speeches by some prominent party figures. But the people they listened to—New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—are unusual in how they talk about these issues and seemed like anomalies to the focus-group participants. [Read more…]

Democrat acknowledges W’s followthrough on Katrina

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Of all the left-leaning pundits on CNN, Donna Brazile comes across as the most level-headed and the least smug, in part because the charismatic and sage Democratic strategist identifies herself as such and doesn’t pretend something she’s not (i.e., a nonpartisan observer).  A few others may claim to be dispassionate, but they wear their liberal ideology on their sleeve.

And Brazile, despite her partisan leanings, does give Republicans credit where it is due as she did earlier today on CNN”s web-page, departing from the media-crafted narrative of the immediate past president’s incompetence in responding to the Katrina catastrophe:

Despite the many differences I had with former President George W. Bush on a range of public policy issues, or as he called them, “decision points,” I found common ground with him in one area, simply because we decided to put aside partisanship and do something good.

Hurricane Katrina’s devastation and the bungled rescue efforts are seared in the national memory. Bush’s “heckuva job” remark turned into a byword for government incompetence and public distrust. The shallowness of it coming at such a terrible and low point left deep wounds that are still healing. That was what it was.

Tapped in 2005 by the then-governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, “to serve on the state’s commission overseeing the long-term recovery from the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina,” Brazile saw more than just that one inopportune comment:

Bush understood the need for civility. I joined him despite my frustration because the need was too great for finger-pointing and blame-making. [Read more…]

Rand Paul: The ‘Old Guard’ Attacking Me Means I’m Winning

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Just some tasty red meat:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9ZWJ0Y4xgI[/youtube]

The interview touches on the key issue of Paul’s recent filibuster. In my own words: If the government can execute American citizens, on American soil, pre-emptively (without an active crime or combat situation and without due process), simply by designating them ‘terrorists’ first… well, who’s a terrorist? Please note that:

With such examples, we see that the Obama – Big Government – Big Banking nexus is indeed prone to labeling its domestic ideological opponents as ‘terrorists’.

Fortunately and as we know, the Obama administration did answer Paul’s filibuster with a clarification of the limits on domestic drone strikes.

[^^I can’t recall Biden’s GOP counterparts – Vice President Cheney, or VP candidates Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan – ever saying that their domestic, non-violent political opponents were terrorists. If you think any of them did, I invite you to find a solid reference and post it in the comments. Quotes about Bill Ayers won’t count, since Ayers was actually violent for awhile.]

UPDATE: Rand is on a roll. “For liberty to expand, government must shrink.” Link is timed to that line, but watch the whole thing.

Why Don’t Bush-Haters LOVE! Rand Paul?

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Perhaps like me, you’re enjoying this great new TV show I just found on C-SPAN2 called Mr. Paul Goes to Washington where my favorite Senator is currently filibustering President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, John Brennan. As I write this, he’s currently about to ring in his sixth hour. The goal of Senator Paul’s soliloquy is, as he has stated several times since I’ve been watching, simply to elicit one thing: A straight-forward answer to the question, (to paraphrase) ‘Does the president believe he has the legal authority to execute through drone strike non-combatant citizens on American soil?’

Brings up a very interesting point: For eight solid years, we heard screeching and gnashing of teeth from the Left about how George W. Bush wants to kill us all and eat our babies and of course shred the Constitution through wars based on lies and the horrible PATRIOT Act. But in the end, who is it who’s actually standing up for these ideals? Well, so far I’ve seen Senator Paul in exchanges with Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Pat Toomey. Odd, don’t you think, that it’d be these ‘Tea Party right-winger knuckle-draggers’ who are actually doing the work that the Bush-haters allegedly wanted done while the leaders of their nominative party are lining up with their president in his expansion of Bush’s ‘unitary executive’ policies?

Clearly it’d be expecting waaay too much for the addlepated adherents to the Bush-is-Satan school of political thought to recognize the irony of the situation, let alone find that realization a great opportunity for self-reflection. Sad, that.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HHQ)

NB: I had originally written the paraphrase of Sen Paul’s question as “power” to execute. Clearly that’s within the president’s power, but I’ve clarified (I hope) by changing my original post to read “legal authority”, which I think is likely more to his point.

Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan!

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On the Gipper’s 102nd, we share with you one of his greatest speeches, delivered in October 1964 in support of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign.

And note how Reagan focuses not so much on the candidate he backs, but the ideas he espouses.

It was that commitment to the American ideal of freedom which would define the Republican’s political career and help account for his success — and his greatness.

Mitch Daniels’s Election Post-Mortem: Mitt Misreads Dependency

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In perhaps the best short critique of Mitt Romney’s “47%” comment, outgoing Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels offers that Mr. Romney

. . . was right about the origin of his problem but wrong about its essence. Without doubt, we have a significant number of Americans for whom dependence and something for nothing have become a way of life. But they were far from 47% in number, and would have voted for the incumbent President under any circumstances.

. . . .

that Mr. Romney “was right about the origin of his problem but wrong about its essence. Without doubt, we have a significant number of Americans for whom dependence and something for nothing have become a way of life. But they were far from 47% in number, and would have voted for the incumbent President under any circumstances.”

(Via Powerline picks.)  Read the whole thing.  Now, Romney was right to address the dependency issue, but he did so in a manner at odds with the dominant strain today of conservative thought.

A real conservative would worry about the growing culture of dependency, but express his belief that most Americans would embrace free-market opportunities should they be made available.  A Republican needs to be able to talk, as Ronald Reagan did, as Jack Kemp did, how conservative policies increase those opportunities and so reduce dependency, but in terms which can really command the assent of people who do not devote much attention to politics, even if they are currently dependent on a federal check for their subsistence.

Jeb Bush gets what Mitt Romney missed
(about conservatism and “economic mobility”)

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Readers of this blog know that I have long been a fan of Jeb Bush, having favored the accomplished former Florida Governor as my candidate for 2012 at least since November 2010.

And while it is still too early to start planning for 2016, when you google that good man’s name, look at what comes up:

Our reader Kyle alerted me to an article that shows that Jeb understands an aspect of modern American conservatism that Mitt Romney failed to articulate.  “Jeb Bush,” writes Mark Silva . . .

. . . the former Florida governor who based a political career on school reform, today called for a “restoration” of lost American values and economic mobility based on educational accountability.

With the gap between the impoverished and privileged in the U.S. widening, the solution lies in a regime of school and teacher evaluation, national standards and more “school choice” in alternatives such as charter schools, he said.

“We have these huge gaps in income,” Bush said at the start of a two-day Washington conference sponsored by his Foundation for Excellence in Education, “with people born into poverty who will stay in poverty.” He said: “This ideal of who we are as a nation — it’s going away, it’s leaving us,” adding: “There is one path that can change this course.”

Emphasis added.  Economic mobility, his belief that people born in poverty, reared in dependency, don’t have to stay in that condition and can rise about their circumstances.

It frustrated many Reagan-Kemp conservatives when, right after the Florida primary, Mitt Romney said because of the “safety net,” he wasn’t concerned about the very poor.

Reagan conservatives, however, have long been concerned about the poor because that safety net sometimes traps them in a cycle of dependency.   And we want to create the opportunities that will help them find the means to move up into a better economic situation. [Read more…]

Chris Christie: If Obama believes he can’t change Washington from the inside, why is he asking for another four years?

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The Governor of New Jersey wonders why the incumbent President of the United States is seeking a second term:

(Via Charlie Spiering at the Washington Examiner.) At 0:18, he addresses the president, “You’ve been living inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, for the last four years. If you don’t think you can change Washington from inside the White House, then let’s give you the plane ticket back to Chicago you’ve earned.”

It’s Chris Christie, watch the whole thing.