The Conservative Brawler

Social Media and Political Campaigns

2012-02-12T02:23:00.000-05:00

An interesting infographic here with valuable data as it pertains to using social media for political campaigning. Click for larger image...

Cartman warns old lady about hippie infestation

2011-10-25T22:01:00.002-04:00

The parallels between this South Park episode and the Occupy Wall Street protests are uncanny.

Full episode

Speaking of drum circles... how sweet is it that OWS communes are already having to come to terms with reality?

The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting."

Fight the power man...

H/T Icarus Pundit

Quagmire blows up on Liberal blogger

2011-10-04T14:17:00.005-04:00

Edited clip

Obama's odds of re-election, 14 months out

2011-08-30T13:36:00.000-04:00

Incumbents tend to have better odds than challengers, true. But there's a tipping point at which it no longer matters (a la Jimmy Carter). His favorability is right at around 50% and his approval rating is about 10 points behind that. Never mind the fact that, since World War II, no president has been re-elected with a jobless rate higher than 7.2 percent. As it stands, Mitt Romney could beat Obama in a head to head contest, and Rick Perry could tie.

The Robin Hood Myth

2011-08-07T17:59:00.000-04:00

Per wiki:

Director's Law states that the bulk of public programs are designed primarily to benefit the middle classes but are financed by taxes paid primarily by the upper and lower classes. The empirically derived law was first proposed by economist Aaron Director.

The philosophy of Director's Law is that, based on the size of its population and its aggregate wealth, the middle class will always be the dominant interest group in a modern democracy. As such, it will use its influence to maximize the state benefits it receives and minimize the portion of costs it bears.

Dismissing Romney’s Federalism

2011-04-13T22:13:00.007-04:00

At a time when Conservative pundits are lauding the shift of Washingtonian focus to a debate on the size and scope of government, those very same pundits are dismissing Federalism with a wave of the hand. Where talking heads are touting "serious solutions to serious problems," they ought to "seriously" reevaluate their dismissal of Federalism, and Romney's application of it.

How is it that Paul Ryan's budget can (rightly) be held in so high a regard by the very same people who condemn Mitt Romney's healthcare efforts in Massachusetts? To the casual, rational observer, it seems quite obvious that the Right has extolled the Ryan plan - which shifts much of healthcare implementation to the states. Yet, those same folks oppose Romney's efforts which were, in and of themselves, a road map for liberal states wishing to institute liberal healthcare without simultaneously creating an unnecessary burden on the rest of the country.

Like it or not, there are liberal states with a plurality of citizens who want a more socialized healthcare system. Does it not make sense to provide them, then, with a means for having the healthcare system they want without entangling the entire nation in their folly? Didn't Romney, therefore, show just how that might be accomplished? Would not any given governor of a liberal state need to take similar steps if the Ryan budget were to become law?

Far more puzzling is the dismissive attitude of self-professed Conservatives toward Federalism.

The notion that the Federal government has usurped too much power and too much debt goes hand in hand with the truism that the Federal government is trying to do too much. And if we can agree that the Federal government is trying to do too much, the question then becomes: who, instead, ought to be doing these things - if they are to be done at all?

Romney's answer is simple: the States.

Therefore, his stance against a liberal national healthcare policy is entirely reconcilable with his stance in support of a liberal healthcare policy in the liberal state of Massachusetts. What is Federalism if not a system that puts government decisions closer to the people so as to serve those people best?

And while there are certainly flaws in Romneycare, Massachusetts voters have yet to elect representatives who might revoke it. Under the tenants of Federalism, citizens can simply move to another state if they don't like the way the Massachusetts government operates. That's far less true when we're talking about national policy, like Obamacare - which is what makes socialist policy at a Federal level far more punitive of the poor, who have much less mobility.

How, then, was it not in keeping with Federalist sentiment to pass the healthcare legislation in Massachusetts, using Massachusetts tax dollars, when the people of Massachusetts wanted (and apparently still want) it?

I for one love that at least one potential GOP candidate has managed to put two and two together and get Federalism. I love it even more that Romney knows enough to couch his narrative with Durant-esk references to the "laboratory of democracy":

"Our approach was a state plan intended to address problems that were in many ways unique to Massachusetts. What we did was what the Constitution intended for states to do—we were one of the laboratories of democracy. Our experiment wasn’t perfect—some things worked, some didn’t, and some things I’d change. One thing I would never do is to usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover."

To which Conservatives are, apparently, replying: "Which parts does he like?" This question is disingenuously posed. Romney has already answered that question, and he's been answering that question in the same way for years.

If conservatives cast aside Federalism, I'm not quite sure what ideological leg we'll have to stand on come 2012. "Individual liberty" only rings true if you're willing to shift power away from the Federal government and toward the individual. That's what Romney did as governor, and that's what he has proposed to do as president - to take concerns like healthcare and shift the burden of solving those concerns toward the individual, so that solutions are localized relative to the unique circumstances rather than generalized and socialized into the type of bureaucratic nightmare we've seen created by Obamacare.

As Bruce Walker of the American Thinker recently put it:

The disintegration of states is the gravest problem we face. The omnipresent federal government means that Americans can no longer run from tyranny by leaving one state and moving to another. The transfer of power from state government to some nebulous "people" means that we have democracy, a very unhappy form of government.

It seems as though, on the 150th anniversary of a Civil War in which hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives, we would do well to remember the fundamental government structure those Americans died defending.

So, to folks looking for an apology for "Romneycare," I suspect Mitt might just refer you to his 2010 New York Times Best Seller. Or to quote him directly:

“States have rights that the federal government doesn’t have... The last thing you want to see is the federal government usurping the power of states... I’m not going to apologize for the rights of states to craft plans on a bipartisan basis that they think will help their people."

The Romney camp has tested several narratives to justify his healthcare efforts as governor. But, really, he need only stick with the explanation he first offered when he signed the legislation: federalism. And therein lies Romney's path to the White House.

March Madness in Delaware

2011-03-29T01:22:00.004-04:00

Full story at The Blaze...

Time for the political discourse on abortion to evolve

2011-02-01T13:56:00.011-05:00

With the GOP looking to reverse Obama's recent efforts to provide federal funding to abortion services, the pro-choice crowd is up in arms.

It goes without saying that pro "choice" advocates are working under the assumption that a woman's "reproductive rights" supersede a child's right to life.

Science has taught us a whole lot since Roe vs. Wade about when a fetus develops and how. It's time to cast away old euphemisms and outdated understandings to have a serious congressional debate as to what needs to be done about the abortion epidemic plaguing our country - our disenfranchised poor and minorities in particular.

The Left contends that the Right wants to "force women to have the baby of a rapist," turning her body into a "reproductive machine." Disregarding the misrepresentation of Conservative motivation here, let's consider this argument on its face for a moment.

If a woman is raped and impregnated, does she really need four months to figure out whether or not she wants to have the rapist's child? It's a legitimate question worth consideration.

Regardless, as soon as the fetus becomes a scientifically definable human being, the government is obligated to protect its right to life.

Saying a woman has the right to terminate the life inside of her because its her body that's doing the nurturing is like saying the 50% of the country who pay federal income tax have a right to terminate the other 50% who don't. Just because someone is dependent on you doesn't mean they forfeit their right to life - or that the government isn't obligated to protect them anymore.

And who's to say when a woman was raped and when she wasn't? I suppose that a baby's life is forfeit just because a mother - who suddenly decides she doesn't want to have a baby any more - knows enough about the law to tell the doctor she was "raped?" I support legislators' efforts to tighten the law in this regard.

Once past (and some would contend during) the first trimester simply saying, "I was raped, now terminate this pregnancy," is not - in and of itself - a sufficient condition for ending a human's life. I'm sorry, but it's not.

The time for pretending that only women who are raped, or at medical risk, commit abortions has come to an end. 50 million abortions (or 1/6 the current U.S. population) have been performed in the U.S. since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion - 10% of those (or 5 million) transpired after the first trimester (past when it has been scientifically proven that the baby feels pain). About one out of every three American women (35%) will have an abortion by the age of 45. In 2008 alone, there were 1.2 million "legally terminated pregnancies." That's 1.2 million American human lives snuffed out in a single year - or about three times the total number of casualties suffered by the U.S. in WWII. Where's their memorial?

The political Left insists that the government must provide a "safety net" for people's health care, education, food, unemployment, etc. But here we have an issue where millions of human lives are being prematurely terminated and the Left opposes government intervention? I'd laugh if it weren't so tragic.

A lot of pro-life ire is directed at a specific portion of the country (in 14 states, I believe), where later term abortions - a fetus from which has been proven to be sustainable outside of the mother's body - are legal. This is a process by which the fetus is sucked up with a vacuum, its skull is crushed and/or it's partially removed from the womb to have its spinal cord severed - all with nary a check or balance on the mother or doctor's claims that she was raped or is at medical risk. There is no intellectually honest argument which can justify this.

Sadly, its the poor - minorities in particular - who suffer most from the government's inaction on abortion. Abortion kills more Black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined - and that figure isn't all-inclusive because not every state records abortions relative to ethnicity. My home state - Georgia - has the highest number of abortions among African-Americans.

It's just painful to watch the Left insist that the federal government "must" be involved in so many things that really aren't within its constitutional reach and/or authority. Yet, here, we have a clear-cut case of protecting American life, yet the Left says "hands off." We have the sixth highest abortion per capita ratio in the world. When is it time to be "hands on?"

The 70s were a long time ago. It's time for the political discourse on this subject to evolve.

The GOP's goal is in no way to put the mother's life at risk, or to force her to have a rapist's child. The first priority is to stop federal subsidization of an act with which most Americans disagree. Beyond that, conservatives simply seek to make sure the government fulfills its responsibility to protect the life of the child. And if that means that a woman and her doctor have to fill out some uncomfortable forms to ensure no one's falsely crying "rape" or "health risk," I think that's worth a few million lives.

David Sidorsky, Columbia University Philosophy Professor, Discusses American Conservatism

2011-02-01T01:38:00.001-05:00

This stimulating interview with David Sidorsky, a professor at Columbia University, was tipped to me by an online associate. It's a cerebral dissection and philosophical analysis of American Conservatism, and definitely worth a listen!

David Sidorsky has taught philosophy at Columbia University since 1959, and received his PhD in Philosophy at Columbia in 1962. His primary teaching and research interests are in moral philosophy and political philosophy, with secondary interests in philosophy of literature and the history of 20th century philosophy, including the history of American philosophy.

Grading the 2011 State of the Union

2011-01-27T02:50:00.003-05:00

Obama: C+

Putting aside 1) the plethora of double speak 2) the fact that he's made many of these same promises before yet never even tried to deliver and 3) he obviously had to move to the center to stop the bleeding at the polls - I think this was Obama's best SOTU yet.

Last year's State of the Union address was totally inappropriate. The SOTU is the President's opportunity to step above partisan bickering and unify the nation - to the point of trying to bring his political opposition around to his way of thinking. Instead of doing that, Obama simply used the 2010 SOTU as yet another public platform to attack Republicans. It was beneath the office, and I don't think I've ever seen a president stoop to that level.

Last year's elections have forced Obama to take a different tone in 2011. He knows that if he doesn't move to the center with his rhetoric, he and his party will take another beating in the 2012 election. So, he's paying lip service to the sentiments that were made apparent last fall.

But let's view the speech on its face for a moment and ignore the political context.

The first half of the speech about "investments" really didn't tout anything new. These are the same spending initiatives he's been promoting since he announced his candidacy. But make no mistake, what he’s now calling “investments” are really just the same old pet projects of the Left. Spend, spend, spend! A rose by any other name still has thorns, Mr. President.

The second half of the speech - while I liked many of the proposals (freezing spending, no earmarks, consolidating federal bureaus, etc.) was completely irreconcilable with the first half. When even the Associated Press feels inclined to fact check his math, you know he’s gone beyond the pale.

However, while freezing spending is certainly not the same as cutting spending, it's a move in the right direction. Of course, he’s really proposing nothing more than shutting the stable doors after the horses have bolted. The man runs up a larger deficit than all the presidents before him combined and NOW he seems to think that freezing spending at these astronomical levels is somehow sustainable?

I did find amusement in the fact that he proudly touted his new-found stances of freezing spending and vetoing earmarks. John McCain circa 2008 would be so proud… the irony is delicious.

In any event, Obama must be planning some serious budgetary shenanigans (akin to the ones they used to get the CBO to score their debt inducing Obamacare bill as "deficit neutral") to pursue all the "investment" projects he mentioned in the first half of the speech, but meet the budgetary goals he outlined in the second half. He might as well call his 2011 budget proposal "Error 404" because this mess does not compute.

I did like that he took a strong line about defeating the Taliban, but it's a shame that his first mention of the troops came 3/4 of the way into his hour-long speech, and even then he used it as a segway to talk about DADT - which, by the time activist courts get done with it, might end up costing the military billions upon billions of dollars in added same-sex partner benefits.

Back to the Taliban. It was a thrill when he said "we will defeat" the enemy - because that's about as close to mentioning the word "victory" as he's allowed himself to get. Baby steps, I suppose... But his tone was irreconcilable with his wrong-headed withdraw strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've already seen the violence in Iraq steadily increase, and the government there is really far too fragile to resist it.

Remember though, this was a guy who appealed to the right-of-center crowd throughout his campaign. One of his primary promises (later reaffirmed during his presidency) was that he was going to cut the deficit in half! Of course, he didn't mention that he was going to quadruple it first!

By the Heritage Foundation

I did like that he issued a more unifying tone (albeit because he had to). And I do like that he at least paid lip service to reducing spending (also because he had to). All in all, though, I think this may be as good a speech as we can "hope" to hear from Obama.

Paul Ryan: B

Ryan's address disappointed me. I love Paul Ryan and his road map, and I was really expecting him to lay the quantitative wood to Obama. If I were advising Ryan, I would have had him beat Americans over the head with numbers and stray away from general, sweeping appeals to pathos. The man's a policy wonk, not a prolific speaker!

All the same, he hit the right messages for the party. He strayed away from traditional GOP pitfalls (i.e.: alienating social statements), but his tone did seem decidedly more negative than Obama's. Of course, it needed to be (just as Obama's needed to be more positive) because of the current political reality.

All in all, Ryan did just fine. His remakrs will be soon fade from memory, but they were fine.

I liked last year's GOP response much better, and I thought it (by taking place in Virginia with a crowd) was absolutely the right way to add real energy and life to a rebuttal. Plus, last year's GOP response was dripping with Federalism - which I think will be the bread and butter of the Republican Party's road to the White House in 2012.

This year's response just sort of stood as a stark reminder that there's going to be some heavy, long-lasting political fights ahead. Sort of depressing really - and not in a way that motivated me to care more for the Republican Party or less for the Democrats.

Michele Bachmann: A-

I stood shoulder to shoulder with establishment Republicans who were worried about this address. Not because she would siphon votes away from Republicans to the Tea Party... just that she would siphon votes away from the Republican party - likely by saying something asinine (a la Carrie Prejean) that would, then, take the Right's intellectual elite days to squelch. Her remarks really had the potential to muddle the GOP's message if she made a fool of herself. Fortunately, she did not.

That being said, I have no problem with various caucuses issuing their own, more niched statements. I simply think the media made a bigger deal out of this than it was because they were hoping she'd say something ridiculous that could, in turn, be misattributed to the Tea Party at large. She did not.

Her's was a solid response, full of the type of quantitative smack downs I expected from Ryan. So, in retrospect, it happened to work out that the media hyped up her response... this time.

Obama White House releases official theme song for 2011 SOTU

2011-01-27T01:44:00.000-05:00

I posted this video well over a year ago, but it's just too darn fitting not to post in this context...

The bell tolls for thee Liberals

2010-11-02T22:26:00.001-04:00

Political cartoon by Jerry Holbert

The additional bureaucracy of Obamacare

2010-10-18T12:56:00.001-04:00

Front Page Magazine and Newsmax have more...

Remember November

2010-10-09T19:16:00.007-04:00

Amazing video from the Republican Governor's Association:

"With just four weeks remaining until Americans make their voices heard, Democratic leaders are hoping you forget about the broken promises and failed policies of the last 18 months. Remember November is a campaign to hold Democrats accountable for their record. Join us at http://www.remembernovember.com"

Obama inherited victory in Iraq

2010-10-07T01:29:00.010-04:00

Political cartoon by Mike Lester

This may come as a shock to you, but the timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq was decided during the Bush administration with the signing of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) by U.S. and Iraq officials on Nov. 16, 2008. The Iraqi parliament signed SOFA on Nov. 27, 2008.

And before you look at that Nov. 16 date and think to yourself, "Well yeah... Obama had just won the 2008 election and Bush was preempting the inevitable," note that the time table agreement had been in negotiations since 2007. Further, Iraqi leaders backed the agreement only after reassurances from President-elect Obama that his administration would not try to change the accord negotiated by the Bush administration - so it's not as if Obama was simply unaware that he would be piggy backing off of President Bush's diplomatic success.

President George W. Bush said of the Iraqi parliamentary vote in a statement on Nov. 27, 2008, “Today’s vote affirms the growth of Iraq’s democracy and increasing ability to secure itself. Two years ago this day seemed unlikely – but the success of the surge and the courage of the Iraqi people set the conditions for these two agreements to be negotiated and approved by the Iraqi Parliament.”

Naturally, Obama has since claimed credit for both the withdraw time table (he had nothing to do with setting) and the Iraq War victory (brought about by the troop surge both he and Vice President Biden opposed a few years ago - only to approve a larger surge of their own in Afghanistan).

In addition to opposing the surge that won the war in Iraq, Democrats also made a concerted effort to cite the war's cost as their primary reason for opposing our efforts there - apparently forgetting that a significant portion of their party voted to go to war in the first place. Ironically, Congressional Budget Office numbers recently showed that the total cost of the eight-year war in Iraq was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009.

Indeed, I've also noted the oft-exaggerated whining about the impact of war spending on the national debt.

Meanwhile, "Relative to the size of the economy, this year's deficit is expected to be the second largest shortfall in the past 65 years; 9.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), exceeded only by last year's deficit of 9.9 percent of GDP," the CBO wrote.

Yet, the number of Americans receiving food stamps reached a record 41.8 million in July as the jobless rate hovers near a 27-year high.

It seems quite obvious that America has very little to show for the excessive cost of Obama's "stimulus." But what did we get from the Iraq war?

Well, to answer that question, you first have to recall why we went to war in Iraq in the first place - which may be difficult given the past decade of Liberal obfuscation.

To put it succinctly, Saddam Hussein repeatedly violated 16 United Nations Security Council Resolutions designed to ensure that Iraq didn't pose a threat to international peace and security. In addition to these repeated violations, he tried, over the course of a decade, to circumvent UN economic sanctions against Iraq. To quote the Bush White House administration's casus belli directly:

"Specifically, Saddam Hussein was required to, among other things: allow international weapons inspectors to oversee the destruction of his weapons of mass destruction; not develop new weapons of mass destruction; destroy all of his ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers; stop support for terrorism and prevent terrorist organizations from operating within Iraq; help account for missing Kuwaitis and other individuals; return stolen Kuwaiti property and bear financial liability for damage from the Gulf War; and he was required to end his repression of the Iraqi people."

Saddam Hussein repeatedly violated these resolutions and others, and there was a very real, very legitimate international concern about the status of Iraq's WMD programs.

With very little fanfare, coalition forces have uncovered hundreds of chemical weapons (which are, for some unknown reason, no longer considered WMDs by those on the Left - but they were before the term became politicized) since the Iraq invasion began in early 2003.

How this has all been lost from political discourse is baffling to say the least.

In addition to the original reasons for going to war in Iraq, we must also evaluate our reasons for staying - the most obvious of which was to prevent a power vacuum through which terrorism and/or radicalism might regain a foothold in the region, thus negating the point of invading in the first place. Indeed, even today, roughly 60% of Iraqis contend that their country is/was not ready for a U.S. withdraw.

So, as we evaluate the cost ($709 billion for military and related activities) and benefits of the eight-year war in Iraq, it is necessary to resist the Left's attempts to revise recent history for political expediency. I won't here attempt to argue whether or not the cost (both in American lives and treasure) has been worth the benefits wrought; but I do want to note that the more than 4,420 U.S. Soldiers who have given their life in Iraq for the cause did not die in vain - as the Left would have you believe.

Yet, the question remains: have we achieved victory in Iraq? What would victory even look like?

The nonpartisan Brookings Institution offers some of the details (via Front Page Magazine):

Insurgent attacks are down in every province, with some provinces reporting zero monthly attacks.
With 34 of its 42 leaders killed or captured, al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has been eviscerated.
At the height of Iraq’s postwar war, 904 Americans were killed in a single year (2007). So far in 2010, 39 have died—56 percent of them in non-hostile incidents.
Iraqi civilian deaths are down from a ghastly monthly toll of nearly 4,000 in 2006 to 137.
Attacks against U.S. and Iraqi troops are down from 1,800 per week to a couple dozen per week, and mortar attacks have virtually ceased.
Some 83,000 Iraqis, many of them former insurgents, have joined the Sons of Iraq to become part of the solution.
There are now 664,000 Iraqi security forces trained and standing their posts.
With the troops leading the way, the U.S. has built 140 new hospitals and health care centers, a new electrical grid, an expanded water-delivery system and scores of schools free from Baathist indoctrination.
There were 833,000 telephone subscribers in Saddam’s Iraq; there are 20.8 million today—19.5 million of them cellular. There were 4,500 Internet users under Saddam; there are 1.6 million today.
Almost six in 10—58 percent—of Iraqis say things are good or quite good; 84 percent say security is good in their area; 78 percent say crime protection is good in their area; 74 percent say freedom of movement is good in their area; 59 percent feel very safe in their neighborhood; 61 percent have confidence in the Iraqi government; 64 percent want Iraq to remain a democracy.
Iraq rates fourth in the region in political freedom, just behind Israel, Lebanon and Morocco.
Iraq’s GDP has grown from $20 billion in 2002 to $60.9 billion.
Iraq is producing 2.41 million barrels of oil per day (almost at pre-2003 levels) and exporting 1.88 million barrels per day (above pre-2003 levels).

The cost of the Iraq war has been immense - there is no denying that. But the world is a safer, better place for our efforts there, and anyone who contends that the results of the war have been negligible is either ignorant or disingenuous.

And if lives lost are the measure by which we evaluate the true cost of war, I should point out (for the sake of perspective) that we’ve lost more Soldiers in Afghanistan under Obama than we did during Bush’s entire two terms.

So, even as Obama announces the "end of the Iraq War" (while at the same time once again erroneously blaming war costs for his own failed economic policies' impact on the deficit), belief that our role in Iraq has concluded is unfounded - with about six brigades of 50,000 U.S. troops expected to remain, advise and assist Iraqi forces. These remaining U.S. forces are still very much in the fight for Iraq's security and stability.

Given all this, it's not surprising that Obama's approval rating on Iraq has dropped 16 points to 41%.

What's bothersome, from a Conservative perspective, is that Republicans have run away from the Iraq war in an effort to distance themselves from President Bush's unpopularity (never mind the fact that George W. Bush's favorability rating (45%) is now higher than Obama's job approval (43%)). Why? Has the GOP abandoned the Iraq debate out of intellectual laziness or political expediency? The answer remains unclear.

What remains clear, however, is that President Barack Obama inherited victory in Iraq from the George W. Bush administration. So, despite Joe Biden's claims that Iraq is one of Obama's "great achievements," nothing could be further from the truth.

The war in Iraq was won in spite of Obama and Liberals of his ilk, not because of them.

Racism in the Democratic Party

2010-09-28T03:27:00.000-04:00

Obama's economic solution

2010-09-27T18:08:00.000-04:00


Political Cartoon by Eric Allie

If at first you don't succeed... keep spending!

On a related note, if you haven't read Paul Ryan's Fiscal Roadmap to recovery, you should! It's great to see a policy-focused Conservative putting forward substantive yet reasonable proposals to solve our debt crisis.

The Last Best Hope

2010-09-26T20:01:00.000-04:00

Mourning in America

2010-09-22T20:13:00.001-04:00

I'll just quote the video description directly:

In 1984, the Reagan reelection campaign set the standard for modern political advertising with its fabled "Morning in America" series, which included one of the greatest political ads of all time -- "Better, Prouder, Stronger." The ad captured the zeitgeist -- America under President Reagan was coming back, full of optimism and confidence in the future.

Today, the zeitgeist is exactly the opposite. Americans are worried about their future, and about a government determined to implement policies that just don't work. But like its predecessor, "Mourning in America" offers a new hope -- if we can just get our government to return to time-tested policies that can spark a rebirth of liberty.

Reactionary Tea Partiers

2010-09-19T17:55:00.000-04:00

Political Cartoon by Bob Gorrell

Weekly conservative stat dump: August 25

2010-08-25T20:26:00.000-04:00

Here's your not-so-weekly conservative stat dump :) Lots of great info - hard numbers to help you beat back the opinionated conjecture of the political Left!

Politics:

Gallup: Majorities disapprove of Obama on environment, Iraq, taxes, health care, the economy, Afghanistan, deficit, immigration
Gallup: Obama’s disapproval rating hits 51%
Gallup: Avg. Midterm Seat Loss 36 for Presidents Below 50% Approval
Zogby: Obama tanks in 13 of 13 policy areas
Rasmussen: 57% say Democratic congressional agenda is extreme
WSJ: Just 24% express positive feelings about the GOP, a new low in the 21-year history of the Journal's survey, Democrats are only slightly more popular, but also near an all-time low
Telegraph: The stunning decline of Barack Obama: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown
Rasmussen: Nathan Deal (R ) leads Roy Barnes (D) in Georgia's governor race, 51-42%
CNN (as cited on Hot Air): Obama losing to generic Republican challenger 45/50
CNN: 68% of American Voters Oppose Ground Zero Mosque
Rasmussen: 70% believe most in Congress trade votes for cash
Gallup: Low Approval of Congress Not Budging, Now 19%
Gallup: GOP Maintains Lead on Generic Ballot for Congress
CNN: Only 42% of Americans say Obama was definitely born in US. 58% are sure he was not or have some doubt
CBS: How Many "Top Priority" Issues Does Obama Have? 13
The Iowa Republican: Huckabee Leads 2012 Iowa Caucus Poll (Huckabee 22%, Romney 18%, Gingrich 14%, and Palin 11%)
Hot Air: GOP out to biggest generic ballot leads in history in both Gallup and Rasmussen
Daily Caller: U.S. pays $16,000 for imam’s Mideast tour
PPPolling: GOP Tea Party problem- Angle, Rubio, Buck all among 6 least popular Senate candidates
Pew: Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Thinks Obama Is Muslim, Survey Shows
Campaign Spot: Bush polling better than Obama in frontline districts
CNN: Nine Reasons why President Obama is the Worst President in History
Huffington Post: AFL-CIO Prepared To Spend More Than $53 Million On Democrats
Gallup: Public approval of unions remains near record low
Gallup: U.S. Parents Want Teachers Paid on Quality, Student Outcomes

Big Government:

Boston.com: Food stamp use hit record 40.8m in May
CATO Institute: Food stamps "cut" is typical Beltway budgetary sleight-of-hand
USA Today: Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
Huffington Post: Thousands in Atlanta crowd housing authority for Section 8 waiting list
Politico: 70 percent believe political leaders in the nation’s capital are “out of touch”
Heritage: CBO Budget Baseline Shows that Soaring Spending is Drowning America in Debt

Economy:

AP: 56% disapprove of Obama’s handling of economy
Tax Prof: 70% of economists favor extending Bush tax cuts
WSJ: $4.4 Trillion - That's how much the spending baseline has increased in 31 months
Reuters: Existing home sales drop 27% in July - a 15-year low
CNBC: Double-Dip Coming — 20-25% Pullback Likely
Guardian: US Job Losses In July Are Double The Expected Figure
AP: Freddie Mac requests $1.8B in aid after 2Q loss
Mint.com: The Crash Of Housing Construction [Infographic]
USA Today: Dow plunges after Fed said the recovery was slowing down
CNBC: Youth Unemployment Hits Record High
AP: New claims for unemployment aid reach 484,000
AP: Homes lost to foreclosure up 6 pct from last year
WSJ: Deficit in July Totals $165.04 Billion, partially because of paying nearly $20 billion in interest on debt and an additional $9.8 billion to help unemployed Americans
Chlorinated Liberty: July Deficit of $167 Billion Tops Bush Deficit For Entire Year of 2007
Capital Hill: Q2 GDP Growth Could Be Revised To Just 1% After Trade Data
PRI: The real unemployment rate is closer to 16.5 percent
CNBC: Bankruptcies Reach Nearly 5-Year High
NRO: Rep. Paul Ryan's Roadmap in Charts
@JimPethokoukis: Fun Fact: Unemployment rate on Election Day in 1994 was 5.8 percent (U6 was 10.3%)
11 Alive News: Georgia July Jobless Rate Dips, Jobs and Labor Force Declining
Reuters: 2010 budget deficit at $1.342 trillion
Market Watch: Dow, S&P 500 finish in the red for third session
CNBC: Weekly Jobless Claims Post "Surprise" Jump, Hit 500,000
WSJ: A CBO report says the Obama administration's $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has increased the number of employed Americans by between 1.4 million to 3.3 million during the second quarter (at it's best, that's over $260,000 a job)
WSJ: Dow Industrials Fall to 7-Week Low
Gallup: U.S. Underemployment at 18.3% in Mid-August
Tax Foundation: Reports Rank States, Cities by State, Local and Combined Sales Tax Rates

World Affairs:

AP: Iran digging graves for US troops in case of attack
Newsweek: (Infographic) The world's best countries - U.S. ranked 11th
WaPo: Billions in U.S. aid buying little goodwill in Pakistan
Rasmussen: 51% Say U.S. Should Help Israel If It Attacks Iran

Military/War:

Reuters: Iraq forces take over from last U.S. combat brigade
ABC: New Al-Qaida Leader Lived In U.S. For 15 Years
Rasmussen: 77% Think U.S. Nuclear Weapons Arsenal is Important to National Security
CNN: Last U.S. combat convoy has left Iraq
AP: US service member killed in Afghanistan, bringing death toll to 17 American troops so far this month
Fox News: Last U.S. Combat Brigade Leaves Iraq Amid Plan to Double Civilian Security Force
The Independent: Obama's pledge to close down Guantanamo is 'not even close'
AFP: Despite new mission, US troops still in the fight in Iraq
MSNBC: Withdrawal timeline 'invigorates' Taliban, Afghan officials say
AFP: Almost 60% of Iraqis don’t want U.S. to leave yet
WaPo: Suicide bomber kills at least 50 outside Iraqi army station
Reuters: Insurgents attack Iraqi police as U.S. pulls back

Health Care:

AAF: CBO Confirms Detrimental Impact of the Health Care Law on Labor Market Performance
Hot Air: ObamaCare may end student health-care insurance at colleges
RCP: More than 3M seniors may have to switch drug plans
Rasmussen: 56% Favor Repeal of Health Care Law; 54% Say Law Is Bad for Country
Rasmussen: 48% Say It’s Too Easy To Get An Abortion in America

Immigration:

Dallas Morning News: 60,000 babies of noncitizens get U.S. birthright in Texas
CNN: House passes $600 million border security bill
Rasmussen: Most Oppose Citizenship for Children of Illegal Immigrants
Pew (as cited in WSJ): 8% of American births to illegals

Environment:

Edmunds: Used car prices skyrocket a year after Cash for Clunkers
WSJ: Obama WH knew drilling moratorium would cost 23,000 jobs
LA Times: Gulf bacteria chowing down on remaining oil
PPPolling: In Louisiana, 82% favor drilling

MSM:

Miscellaneous:

Psychology Today: Night Owls tend to be smarter than early risers
Advertising Age: New Study Shows GOP Senators Are Social-Media Geniuses
Time: Nearly 30% of couples now meet online
NY Times: Puberty now starting for some girls as early as age seven
CSM: Ebonics interpreters needed for war on drugs, says DEA

Republicans are 'extreme?'

2010-08-19T13:13:00.002-04:00

Here's the latest and greatest NRSC ad...

Via Hot Air:

"The meta-narrative is about Democratic contempt for American public opinion, which of course is why the mosque story has legs. You can debate whether that contempt exists or not, but assuming that it exists (and it surely does, although lefties will deny it in the interest of raw political survival), there’s no debate as to whether it’s a good thing or bad thing. If the GOP convinces independents that the left holds them in contempt — or rather, I should say, if Democrats convince independents of that — they’ll take a beating of Biblical proportions. We’re well on our way."

This is an especially interesting narrative, given recent numbers which indicate that the public thinks the Democratic Party is actually the party that's furthest from center. If you follow this blog regularly, you know how I love hard numbers. The messaging on this, for the RNC, is absolutely spot on. More hard-hitting, fact-using, gut-checking appeals to logos are exactly what Republicans will need in the Novembers of 2010 and 2012.

The Ant and the Grasshopper - 2010

2010-08-17T23:25:00.010-04:00

Had this e-mailed to me from a friend... it was just too good not to share!

You all know the traditional story of the ant and the grasshopper, right? The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE OLD STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

Well, there's a modern version of this story:

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green...'

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."

Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.

President Obama condems the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world down with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

Photo by Vino Wong, vwong@ajc.com

Oh and in completely unrelated news, more than a thousand people gathered Wednesday outside a metro-Atlanta shopping mall in hopes of being placed on a waiting list for federal housing funds.

Fights broke out, children were reportedly trampled, and police had to stop the crowd from storming a cafe being used by the East Point Housing Authority in East Point, Ga.

Abra Cadabra! A new right!

2010-08-15T21:13:00.002-04:00

Political Cartoon by Chuck Asay

For in-depth commentary on the issue of gay marriage that involves neither the manifestation of a new right nor a reference to religious dogma, check out the Intellectual Conservative account of gay marriage.

Banned On The Web: Digg Patriots respond to controversy

2010-08-11T01:22:00.004-04:00

Yours truly goes on "Banned on the Web" to take down the great Conservative Digg Scandal of 2010.

Here's the Digg submission for this video ;)