Oops. Apparently, Townhall.com also has the Chapman article.

I just finished reading an article at reason.com, by Steve Chapman that gave me a little bit of hope for the Republican party. Go read it and see what you think. I was unaware of some of the information I found in it.

 SOURCE: Reason Magazine article

In January, you can probably wave goodbye to the lower gas prices that we have experienced over the past several weeks. When the Democrats take a bigger slice of Congress and Barack Obama moves into the Oval Office the promises of domestic oil exploration will evaporate like so many gas fumes. The Dems are already talking about reinstating the offshore oil drilling ban. But why is it, you may think, that gas prices have dropped by almost half throughout most of the country? It was the furor that the American people raised at paying $4.00 a gallon over the summer. They demanded that domestic oil reserves be tapped regardless of where they were located. The oil speculators and the OPEC nations were scared that their only source of income would completely dry up. Now that the election is won and the prices have dropped so low, you will see all of the platitudes that the Liberals in Congress made disappear and your gas prices go up. And this time they will say that higher gas prices are good because it will force America to find "more sustainable" energy.

There is a new documentary out that questions the wisdom of Barack Obama's supporters (fans) as well as the complicity of the mainstream news media. The film, How Obama Got Elected, looks at twelve people who voted for Obama on November 4^th. The answers that these twelve individuals gave to various political questions are telling about the intelligence of the American people, specifically those identifying themselves as Democrats, and the voracity of the information disseminated to the public by the news media.

Though I have not seen the doc I have seen comparison-contrast clips on Hannity and Colmes. One of the questions was “Which party is in control of Congress?”. Inevitably, they either claimed not to know or that the Republicans were in charge. Those that claimed not to know “guessed” that the Republicans were in the majority. This despite the fact that Democrats have controlled both houses of the Congress for the past two years.

Another question was, “Which candidate claimed that they had visited 57 states during the campaign?”. Most answered “Sarah Palin”. The correct answer is of course, Barack Obama, the man they voted for. In fact, this was one of the gaffes that Republicans tried to use against Obama to show his naiveté and inexperience. The MSM repeatedly defend Obama regarding this gaffe by saying that anyone that had been campaigning as long and hard as Senator Obama would make similar mistakes. However, when Sarah Palin had similar problems with Africa being a continent and not a nation, the mainstreamers jump on it like ravenous wolves. Even though Palin was the vice-presidential choice, rather than on top of the ticket.

Now much of this ignorance is of course the result of that Democrat darling, government education. For nearly a hundred years the Liberals in the U.S. have pushed the compulsory government education agenda, as well as forcing liberal dogma down the throats of children. And when the results are inevitably horrid they simply claim that all they need is more money for programs, more teachers for the schools and more money to pay the teachers. The teachers unions, just like every other union in this country has the Democrat party tied around their little fingers. They're the only ones that benefit from this tax and throw down a deep dark pit strategy. The students are simply warehoused for eight hours a day for around fourteen years of their lives. And, of course, Liberals continue to try and make compulsory education the law for younger children every year. But the horrendous education system is not the only culprit in the debacle of this year's election.

The Mainstream Media's job is ostensibly educating the American people about the candidates and the option that they have as voters. Unfortunately, during previous elections the MSM has consistently augured for the Democrat. And this election was the most blatant attempt to mold the electorate as the media elites saw fit. Even the Washington Post admitted that they had unfairly given positive coverage to Barack Obama, when compared to John McCain. But why not admit it now; their guy won.

And of course let us not forget that Liberals love to claim that Conservatives are the stupid ones. But after hearing the people who supported Obama I believe that there is more than enough proof that the Dems aim at the lowest common denominator when seeking votes. For the past eight years Republicans have had to listen to the derisive jokes aimed at George W. Bush by those afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome. I guess they spent so much time hating W. and lamenting the past that they forgot to learn about their own candidates and the current election.

It should really be no surprise in a nation that gets its “news” mostly from The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report, as well as Entertainment Tonight and Extra that people are politically ignorant.

Fascist, communist and socialist. These are all familiar epithets that are used in political discourse. This has been especially true in this country over the past two decades, with the Right calling members of the Left communists or socialists and the Left calling Conservatives, fascist. And every now and then you'll hear the dreaded “n” word: Nazi. The fact of the matter is that these are all slightly different flavors of the same philosophies. The core of all of these political systems is the supremacy of the State.

During the early part of the 20^th century governments and philosophers began to break away from the monarchies and empires of the past. They felt that royalty and oligarchs always put the people, the proletariat on the bottom of the totem pole. Socialists and others felt that the way to end this was to put the control of the government into the hands of the people. Something similar had been tried before with republican forms of government, first with the Greeks, and more recently with the United States of America and the French Republic.

However, the political philosophers saw what they felt was a flaw in the republican model. They knew that some would achieve more than others. Some would be richer, smarter, wiser. The socialists believed—and still believe—that all men are equal, not just in the basic rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, but also in every way. They believed that no one should have more than another. That regardless of whether a person works hard they should be given room, board and food, that everyone should drive a similar model of car or live in a similar house. Socialists believed that it was the duty of the State to provide an equalizer for all citizens. This is antithetical to what it means to live in a free society.

However, what Liberals don't tell you is that Nazism started in the same way. Nazi stood for the “National Socialist Workers Party” in Germany. The like all fascists believed in government control of private business. Now this differs slightly from socialism as it was envisioned by Marx, Engels and other founders of socialism in that they believed that the government should not only control businesses but that they should also own all businesses. But with modern socialism this has been modified more in keeping with fascist principles of private ownership, with heavy government regulation. Perhaps the fall of communism throughout the world has led to this modification of core principles. One need look no further than China, which has a communist government with much of the businesses being owned by private individuals. Both fascism and socialism believe that utilities and transportation, as well other services, should be owned and operated by the government.

In the final analysis, the names and terms that people use for the various political groups in this country are more similar than politicians and pundits—particularly Liberals—would have you believe. Instead of being an accurate description of the opposing side, they are simply different names than the standard “Republican” and “Democrat”. The Left uses “fascist” and “Nazi” against those on the Right, even though those terms have very little difference in meaning from Left-oriented “socialist”. While the Right uses the “socialist” tag for the Left even though there are elements to the neo-conservative movement that are firmly entrenched in socialist beliefs.

So, what is in a name?

Barack Obama was packaged and sold as a reformer, a harbinger of change. But as Republicans have said throughout this campaign, he is nothing more than a savvy politician with cunning handlers. He has stocked his cabinet and his Oval Office with former Clinton hacks. He is rumored to be considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Bill will probably the chief molester and of course let us not forget that there is most likely a place for Al "Moonbeam" Gore. Maybe he could create a new cabinet position for Secretary of Ego.

 No, there is no reform here. Simply the tired old mule of liberalism coughing out another idiotic administration; an administration that the American people will wind up paying for in the decades to come. Fifty-two percent of them deserve what they get.

Come and get it. The trough is open. First, it was the banks and insurance giant AIG. Then it was individual citizens. Now the Big 3 automakers are coming to Congress with their hands out and it appears that municipalities throughout the country will be next. Everybody wants a piece of the bailout pie and you and I are footing the bill.

The problem of course is that we are already spending at a deficit. Between two ongoing wars, the spendthrift nature of recent congresses and the dwindling revenue due to the financial crisis itself there's no way that the government can make up that gap. This is why the government uses credit from foreign nations to prop up its budget. But other nation's are feeling the credit pinch as well. And that brings us to an even more troubling situation.

The United States may lose its 'AAA' rating which will make it more difficult to get loans to pay all of the deficit spending that we are doing. And in the unlikely event that some nation calls in its loans, it will make the Great Depression look like a mild correction. I say that it is unlikely because the debt could not be paid off and trying to seize the assets of the U.S. would cause a catastrophic crisis around the world including the nation or nations that call in that debt. But we live in a world filled with suicide bombers and socialist dictators that would love nothing better than to destroy capitalist nations, especially America. The suicide bombers would have nothing to lose because the believe they answer to a “higher power” than Wall Street. The tin-pot dictators who believe they are the second-coming of Marx aren't bright enough to realize that socialism is no replacement for the free market. Case in point: Hugo Chavez. Since he nationalized most of the Venezuelan economy and put price controls on food, rationing of essentials and economic collapse has been the result. And let's not even get into Cuba.

So there are worries involved in any economic crisis, especially this one. But that's all the more reason to take a measured, judicious approach to the treatment of these crises. Republicans warned that the socialist bailout plan that Congress passed a few months ago would result in more problems than it would solve. Now that the nation knows that its so-called leaders can be cajoled to give handouts, everyone wants a piece of the action.

Props go to Drudge for the article on the 'AAA' threat.

SOURCE: CNBC article

The Dems are on a hunt for the heads of moderate and conservative members of their party. They have every intention of swinging far to the Left and I say that we Conservatives should let them. Sooner or later it will come back to bite them in the posterior and that's when we can retake control of the Congress.

The Libs in the Democrat party are trying to push Joe Lieberman and John Dingell out of their positions in the Senate and House respectively. Lieberman is on the chopping block because of his support of John McCain during the election. In 2006 he was kicked off the Democrat ballet in Connecticut because of his support for the Iraq War. He ran as an Independent and the people of his state voted the veteran senator back into office. Even after the betrayal of his party he continued to caucus with them on most issues. In fact he was one of the reasons that the Dems had a majority in the Senate for the past two years. But now that the Dems have won more seats his vote is no longer needed to maintain their majority so they're saying sayonara.

Representative John Dingell, of Michigan, is in a similar predicament because of his moderate views on climate and energy policy. With the extreme Left running the Democrat party only the “greenest” members are safe. Henry Waxman the ultra-liberal congressman from California, stated the day after the election that he would seek to replace Dingell on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Dems like Waxman refuse to accept terms like “reasonable”, “realistic”, “achievable” and “cost containment”. They want to pass a law that would force industries to cut emissions to 80% below 1990 standards by the year 2050. The thing is that Dingell passed a bill out of his committee that would more reasonably required emissions reductions to 80% below 2005 levels. As the Wall Street Journal puts it, this type draconian law would affect blue-collar Americans more than Waxman's Beverly Hills constituents.

The WSJ also points out that all of this is a warning to “Blue Dog” and rural-state Dems that they are on thin ice with the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate. If the Republicans' charges that the Democrat party is being controlled by the Moveon Left weren't enough to convince the rest of America, then this should do it. Unfortunately, it's too late. For the next two to four years we're stuck with the job-destroying, tree-worshiping liberals. I hope you're happy America.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal story

On the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month, in 1918, the armistice that ended World War I went into effect. It was, up to that point, the bloodiest conflict in modern history. It was the first war to use weapons of mass destruction, including tanks, machine guns, chemical weapons and the full fury of the Industrial Age.

First proclaimed in November of 1919 and finally made an official holiday on May 13, 1939, it was meant to remember the men that fought and died in World War I. In 1953, a Kansas shoe store owner named Al King began a movement to have Armistice Day honor ALL veterans, regardless of whether they served in war or peace. President Eisenhower signed it into law in May of 1954 and in November of that year Congress amended the law to change the name from Armistice Day to Veterans Day.

So today if you see a vet, whether currently serving or not, say thank you. Whether they served in war or peace they gave a portion of their lives so that ours could be free.

God bless America.

Well we have a new President-elect, Barack Obama. He ran on the promise of "change", but in just the first few days of his transition he has proven to be not as interested in change as he said during the campaign. He has appointed former Clinton aide Rahm Emmanuel as his chief-of-staff. Another Clinton-era staffer, John Podesta, is the head of his transition team. And that 's just the start. How long before we have Sandy Berger as the National Intelligence Czar?

 It seems that the only real change that Obama is making is to his campaign promises. From nearly the minute after he was declared the victor in the election last week he has already begun to try to lower the expectations for what he hopes to accomplish in his administration. He has even started talking about the need for a second term.

I was sitting at work trying to be at peace with the nation's choice of president and I came up with some interesting thoughts about race. It is something that our nation will always have to deal with but this particular election brings into the clear light of day, I think for the first time.

I never had any intention of voting against Obama because his skin was darker than mine. It really never entered my mind. And yet many black Americans did vote for Obama because he is a black man. One commentator said that the number of whites that voted against Obama because of color offsets the number of black people that supported him for the same reasons. I find this logic spurious at best.

Colin Powell is a prime example of a black man that voted for Obama simply because he is the same color. Powell had been a long time Republican—albeit a moderate one. Like John McCain he had served in Vietnam and he was well aware of the the Arizona senator's qualifications for the presidency. Despite his assertions to the contrary he endorsed Obama for no other reason than his race.

I don't have a problem with black people supporting Barack because he's black. They should be proud of the accomplishment of the first term senator from Illinois, the “Great Emancipator”, Abraham Lincoln's state. What I don't like is when a person tells a bald-faced lie about their reasons for making this very important decision.

It brings up a question that I feel has to be asked: why is it that people think they have to lie about it? If this were forty years ago I could understand the reticence of black Americans to state their reasons for voting based on race. Of course forty years ago a black man would never had made it. The point is that times have changed. And Colin Powell is one of the reasons that they have changed so positively. He served with distinction and became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs under George H. W. Bush. He led the successful campaign against Saddam Husein in the first Gulf War. He was the first black Secretary of State. He has no reason to be ashamed about the fact that he voted for Obama simply because he is also black. Powell has paid his dues.

One of the reasons may simply be that he feels that he was slighted by the current Bush administration because of his reticence to use military force against Iraq. He made the case to the world at the UN for war and the evidence was faulty. It made him look bad. He also may feel that he is partially to blame for the deaths of over 4,000 men and women of the American armed forces. I guess I feel that maybe I am too since I supported the war. But the fact remains that we were operating on the intelligence that we had at the time. And though I'm just a lowly civilian I supported the war because I thought it was the right thing to do. I made some mean statements about the people who were against the war and I am sorry. However, neither Colin Powell nor anyone else that supported the war should blame ourselves for that tragedy since we used the same info to come to our conclusions. So if a feeling of responsibility for what happened is one of the reasons that he lied about his reasons for voting for Obama, it is misplaced. A lot of good people were duped.

I don't think that Colin Powell is afraid of what people think about him. I don't think that that is why he lied about his reasons. But if that's not the reason then the only remain reason for lying is the worst reason. He was actively trying to mislead the American people. Remember he didn't have to publicly support Obama. He could have simply done what the rest of America did on November 5^th; he could have silently voted. But he went out of his way to make a statement of his support on all of the Sunday chit-chat shows. And while doing so he lied about his reasons.

I think that I have lost a little respect for Mr. Powell.

Dear Republicans,

Well here we are at the beginning of our long exile from power. We have two groups to blame for our ouster: the leadership in the Republican party and the selfish American people (see my previous post). Because I have already addressed the issue of the selfishness of the American people, and I have already given fair warning to the Democrats about the next two to four years, it's your turn my brothers and sisters.

I originally was going to do a bullet list of the problems facing the Republicans at this time. However, I felt that maybe it would be better to go in depth with the problems and some possible solutions. I mean we have to be optimistic and have a “Yes we can” attitude.

First of all the leaders of the party must be held accountable for their lackluster performance. We have already shed some like Denny Hastert, but it will take a scorched-earth policy to cleanse us of the scourge of neo-conservatism. We should be die-hard conservatives, pure and simple.

The next thing we must rid ourselves of is the label “compassionate conservative”. The very term should make us cringe. It's as if we're admitting the old liberal chestnut that conservatives are crotchety old Scrooges that want to take the home away from the old widow lady. If we truly believe in the merits of our conservative principles, then it is not necessary for us to say that we are “compassionate” conservatives.

We must not put all of our eggs in one basket. While most of the members of our party are God-fearing people who believe in social conservatism, we can't rely on that one side of our nature to win over the moderates and independents. Abortion is murder, pure and simple, but we have no hope of eliminating that horror if we are still in exile or we don't have a super-majority in the Congress. Gay marriage is slowly being decided on a state-by-state basis, and remember we believe in states' rights, right?

Keeping with the topic of diversification we must also not rely too heavily on security and defense as a crutch. We know we are strong on defense and the American people know we are strong on defense. We don't need to keep reminding people, especially in the current economic climate. Obviously the American people are more concerned at this point with getting something-for-nothing, and robbing those that earned it to give to those that didn't to be concerned at this time with little things like national defense (even though we are still fighting a war of terror).

Next we as a party must become a part of the information age. We cannot sit idly by while people like Moveon.org and Daily Kos corner the market on the high tech sector of campaigning. There are some good sites out there, like RedState.com and PajamasMedia.org, but we have to do more. We have to hit iPods, iPhones, YouTube, Blackberries and new emerging venues. We need to add tools to our arsenal, like Flash animation and Conservative web programming. Again we have a start with sites like Stop-him-now.com (which has apparently ceased to exist) which used Flash animation to poke jabs at Obama and the Dems as a whole. But it never achieved the regularity of liberal forums like MarkFiore.com, only producing sporadic animation. In fact, the site started as Stop-her-now.com, and was directed at Hillary Clinton during the primaries. So it never achieved the coherency of purpose that it needed.

Which brings me to our next point. We cannot continue to target Billary—or now Obama—solely. We must take a broad approach to the entire Democrat party. We can target those that lean too far to the Left, but we also have to target the Dems that are considered moderate of conservative. If we are to gain the necessary seats in the Senate we have to go after all comers.

We must be judicious in our use of the filibuster. We don't want to give the Democrats a reason to use the so-called “nuclear” option. We also can use that refusal to use the filibuster as a way to not go on the record without voting the dreaded “present”. This way it will be easier to put the complete responsibility of Democrat failures solely on their own heads. They won't be able to claim that the reason that things are bad is because of Republican obstructionism.

Finally, any Republican candidate that promises to take only public funding should be immediately disqualified for mental incompetence. We need to target smaller donors, like Obama did in this election. It is the only way we can compete.

We have a long road to hoe brothers and sisters and the days will be long and the winds cold but we can reclaim the Congress and the White House if we are persistent and if we stick to our principles.

Love,

The America Report

Dear Democrats,

I just thought that you should know that in 2006 you did not win back control of congress. I know that it may seem that way at times, especially since you have a good chance at winning the trifecta this year, but you are wrong. It was the Republicans that lost.

You may ask yourself, “What's the difference?”. The difference is that you win by having better ideas than the other guys and by capturing the hearts and minds of the electorate. That is not what happened in 2006 and it is not what is happening this year.

The thing that you don't seem to comprehend is that the majority of Americans are still center-right in their political leanings. They know that you are controlled by far left-wing groups and individuals like Moveon.org, Daily Kos and George Soros, as well as ninety-nine percent of Hollywood. But they were angry at the Republicans for what they had failed to do, which was shrink the size of government and cut spending. They were also angry that not only did the Republicans not decrease the size of the imperial federal government, they doubled it's size and its spending.

Now if this was the election after the 9/11 attacks, you wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected. This is because another flaw of the Democrat party is that you have a great disdain for the military. You believe that all conflict resolution should be handled by the UN. You call terrorists “freedom fighters” and give them cushy, tenured positions in your liberal colleges. And most of all most of the current Democrat party is truly anti-American. This might play well in San Fransisco or Hollywood, but not in the rest of the country.

Unfortunately, the American people are scared about their financial freedom this election. They see the damage caused by unscrupulous mortgage lenders—some of which were protected by Democrats in congress—that gave loans to people who really could not afford them and had bad credit. Unfortunately for the Republicans, they are seen as the party of the business sector and this is largely true. Also to the Republicans' detriment is the fact that the current president is a Republican and people usually blame the party of the sitting president. President bush has very low approval ratings but congress' approval ratings are much lower than his, and congress has been in your hands for the past two years. This helps to prove the case for saying that you didn't win, the Republicans lost. If the president, who is a Republican, has higher approval ratings than the Democrat controlled congress, then the only reason for your success in 2006 and your predicted success this year is that the country is really punishing the Republicans.

I say all of this to give a warning. You will not be able to get away with your extreme liberal agenda, at least not for very long. You may achieve total supremacy in both house of the legislature along with the White House and you may attempt some of your goals but in two years the entire House and a third of the Senate come up for reelection. If you overreach the American people will slap you down. In addition, the majority of the electorate are people of faith, so your secular/atheistic agenda won't fly either. Even if you win the big prize this year you may not be able to follow through on your machinations because your desire to be reelected is stronger than your agenda.

But we know you too well. You can't resist a power grab. After all for the past twelve years you have screamed that you're going to take America back, as if it were your own personal plaything. The American people own this country not one party. So watch your back. You can try redrawing electoral maps and stacking the states' AG offices and the judiciary with liberals, but Americans won't tolerate that for too long. Yours is the party of dependence on government, of welfare and redistribution of wealth, of abortion and disdain for religion and faith, and of socialism and the supremacy of the State. We don't want rationed health care or to be taxed by the UN and the rest of the world. We don't want to save the environment at the expense of our standard of living or our jobs. Sooner or later no matter what you do to try to stop the inevitable backlash, the American people will slap you back down.

Love,
The America Report

For decades the world has claimed that Americans are selfish and boorish. In the past it was easy for those of us firmly seated on the Right to put that down as nothing more than envy and jealousy for the standard of living and freedom that we enjoy in this country. However, as is usually the case in times of hardship the true character of a people comes out, and it certainly has reared itself here in America.

For nearly twelve years the American people put their morals ahead of selfishness. This "moral center" dictated their political choices and ushered in the Republican revolution and helped to put George W. Bush in office for two terms. But by 2006, the American people had become disillusioned by the Republicans refusal or inability to reduce the size of government and spending in general. They had also been stung by scandals that had attacked Republican politicians. The final straw (and one that the MSM gave far too much weight to) was the war in Iraq. So in November of '06 Republicans lost control of both houses of congress and the Democrat takeover began.

I have been unclear as to the ACTUAL reasons behind the shift in loyalties, vacillating back and forth between believing it was due to honest outrage and that it was simply "anybody but the Republicans". In fact I do believe that the Dems did not WIN in '06, the Republicans LOST.

But now I have a firmer grasp on what led to the ouster of the Republicans. People in this country are selfish. This was not so clear two years ago but the success of a neophyte candidate like Barack Obama has shown me that selfishness is the true dominating factor in this whole mess. We have the choice in this country between a man who served his country and nearly died TWICE doing so, or a man who spent the better part of his life disdaining America and attending a church that spewed anti-American vitriol on a regular basis. If we were living in the better times of the late '90's or early '00's I do not think that Obama would be anywhere near as popular as he is now. But we don't.

So what is it about Obama, and the Dems in general, that is convincing the majority of Americans to sweep them into unprecedented power? The Dems are promising "to spread the wealth". Somewhere along the way, probably in government schools among other places, Americans have been taught that it is the job of the imperial federal government to spread the wealth from the people who earn it to the people who didn't.

And now the Dems are couching it in terms like "fairness" and "patriotism". When you hear any politician tell you that it is your patriotic duty to share your wealth at the point of a gun with people who didn't earn it in the interest of fairness, you've walked into the land of socialism. "From each according to his means, to each according to his needs". That was Karl Marx the father of modern socialism and communism. We spent the better part of the twentieth century fighting communism and socialism around the world. But now times are tough and because the liberal politicians in this country promise people that they are going to give them something for nothing they are willing to throw away their freedoms in the hopes of a quick buck and a pacifier to suck on at night.

Oh yeah that's fair

Those of you who have better things to do than listen to politics all of the time or listen to liberal talk radio may not have ever heard of Randi Rhodes. So you can be forgiven for scratching your heads when I mention this vile woman's name. However, it may be time for you to listen up.

 Rhodes has been a liberal talk radio host since the heady days of Air America. In fact she was sacked from that job because she called Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro ____ing whores (use your imagination). Her current place of employment id "progressive" talk network Nova M Radio. Well over the last week or so she has shown that her intelligence hasn't grown any.

 First she claimed that Senator John McCain was treated well by his captors while a POW in Vietnam. This must explain why he walks with a limp and can't raise his arms above his shoulders. The latest bit of wisdom to ooze from her lips is about Sarah Palin. She claims that Govenor Palin  is like a molester of teenage boys. Maybe Rhodes just hates women in general.

Last year this sterling example of liberal character tripped on the sidewalk near her home and claimed that she had been the victim of a hate crime. The culprit: right-wing muggers. As you can see this woman is just a lovely individual that needs compassion and maybe a little Thorazine.