Category Archives: 3rd Parties

Showdown!

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Harry Reid, the Senate hand-puppet of Obama, refused to negotiate and voted down the last compromise on the CR.  The last few versions of that CR gave away all the gains, defunding Obamacare, and replaced defunding with some minuscule changes that really made no difference. But Obama Reid, refused to play and time ran out.

Good!

So what is the effect? Not all that much. I noticed my neighbor was home mowing his grass this morning. He’s a ‘secret squirrel’ working for the FAA. I don’t know if he has been furloughed or if it’s his day off. He’s on rotating shifts.

I saw a notice sent out by Whiteman AFB listing the functions that would continue and which ones were reduced or closed. Single enlisted Airmen were hit the worse. No Wi-Fi in the barrack’s common rooms and no cable-TV either. The base library is closed and the hours of the auto hobby shop have been reduced, but the Base Exchange is open as is all the usual military functions.

Whiteman AFB Status:

Available:
– Child Development Center and School Age Programs will operate as normal.
– Military Personnel Section (e.g. ID cards) will remain open; however, wait times may be affected.
– Base fire and emergency response services will operate as normal.
– Base Dining Facility will operate as normal.
– All emergency service calls (e.g. HVAC, plumbing, electricity, carpentry) will operate as normal, although response times may be affected.
– All law enforcement and security functions will operate as normal.
– All Non-appropriated (NAF) functions are exempted and will operate as normal including the Club, Golf Course, Lodging, Bowling Alley.
– All education and testing capability (PME/CDC testing, counseling and TA support) will be limited.
– Voicemail services will operate as normal.
– AAFES will remain open.
– Intramural sports games will continue; however, squadrons must provide volunteer officials

Unavailable:
– Airman and Family Readiness Center will have limited services.
– Dorm Residents postal delivery will cease. Residents will need to come to the Post Office to pick up their mail.
– Dorm common room internet services will cease.
– Cable TV service in military buildings will cease; family housing residents will not be affected.
– Grounds maintenance and litter patrol will cease; units must remove litter/debris from around their buildings and in common areas.
– Outdoor Recreation hours will be reduced to 20 hours/week; all trips/tours will be cancelled.
– Auto Hobby Hours will be reduced to 20 hours/week.
– Base Library will close.
– Community Activity Center will close.
– Information, Tickets and Tours (ITT) will close.
– Fitness Center exercise classes will be limited; a new schedule will be available at the Fitness Center.

I seem to remember when I was in the Air Force, Prez Nixon issued some wage and price freezes to control government costs and the runaway inflation created by Johnson’s Great Society and massive spending. I was assigned to Richards-Gebaur AFB and we had similar cutbacks. There was no internet, nor cable-TV then. The only noticeable impact was the closing of the base library, and the Airmen’s Club quit selling 3.2 beer. The NCO and O-clubs remained open as well as the commissary and BX. The on-base gas stations, run by the BX, kept the same hours, and no prices changed.  If you lived off-base, as I did, you really didn’t notice any change. The brunt of the impact was to the unmarried enlisted Airmen living on base.

But the real question is what will be the political impact. Obama Reid is counting on Boehner and the RINO-boys caving. That will probably happen. Boehner and his RINO buds have no spine. They don’t want to jeopardize their membership in the Ruling Class.

The column below appeared today in the National Journal. It mirrors the theme of my posts for the last several months. The writer and the publication aren’t conservative. They’re members of the liberal mainstream, but it is telling that they, too, see the dangers coming towards us.

The Beginning of the End for Washington

This impasse could be the breaking point for a political system that has gone from dysfunctional to nonfunctioning

Step back. Try for a moment to extrapolate what a government shutdown and discredited U.S. currency could do to the economy and the public’s faith in government. Think beyond next year’s congressional elections or even the 2016 presidential race. Factor in existing demographic and social trends. I did, and this is what I concluded:

1. The Republican Party is marginalizing itself to the brink of extinction.

2. President Obama can’t capitulate to GOP demands to unwind the fairly legislated and litigated Affordable Care Act. To do so would be political malpractice and a poor precedent for future presidents.

3. Despite the prior two points, Obama and his party won’t escape voters’ wrath. Democrats are less at fault but not blameless.

4. This may be the beginning of the end of Washington as we know it. A rising generation of pragmatic, non-ideological voters is appalled by the dysfunctional leadership of their parents and grandparents. History may consider October 2013 their breaking point. There will come a time when Millennials aren’t just mad as hell; they won’t take it anymore.

At this point, the writer had to revert to his liberal bias. He applauds ‘Pub Senators like Cole (R-OK), who supported Cruz, and Coburn (R-OK), who supported Harry Reid, calling both “conservatives.” The writer villainizes Ted Cruz, Lee and their supporters as “extremists” who oppose governing(!?).

The Republican Party may be splitting apart. The divide is between conservatives who want to limit government and extremists who oppose governing.

The latter sect is represented by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas who is misleading his supporters. He knows that the GOP can’t overturn Obamacare because Republicans only control one half of one branch of government. And yet, Cruz and other tea party Republicans pledge to do the impossible, presumably to build email lists, bank accounts, and fame.

…

The strange thing is that Obamacare could be a good issue for the GOP. It is an unpopular law freighted with complexity. Successful implementation requires precision from an Obama team that has proved itself weak on the nitty-gritty of governing. One could argue that the GOP is fighting Obamacare at its peak strength – prior to implementation. Why not wait for it to go into effect, seize on the flaws and, as Cole says, win some elections?

Obama can’t and won’t gut his bill. Even if you set aside his politics, capitulation would set a horrible precedent: The nation’s credit and the government itself cannot be taken hostage by the extreme wing of a minority party.

At the risk of being accused of “false equivalency” I need to state the obvious: Obama and his party won’t emerge from a shutdown or debt crisis unscathed. To suggest otherwise is a false purity. For starters, the president of the United States is the living symbol of our government and thus receives undue credit when things are going well and outsized blame when they’re not.

Second, voters want Obama to work with Republicans – or at least try. The president is seen by just half of Americans as trying to work with GOP lawmakers, according to the New York Times/CBS News poll. That is down from six of 10 Americans who said the same thing in January 2012 and three-quarters who said he would work with Republicans in 2010 and 2011.

Remember the central promise of Obama’s presidency: He will change the culture of Washington. What happened? Obama has not only been taken hostage by the worst of Washington, gridlock and pettiness, but he seems to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome. His criticism of the GOP last week was as petulant as any GOP talking point. While announcing historic negotiations with Iran, a regime that sponsors terrorism, Obama said he wouldn’t bargain with the GOP.

Reaching out to rivals doesn’t mean capitulating on Obamacare. It does mean swallowing his pride, listening and helping the GOP find a way out of the box they’ve built for themselves. If this was merely a leadership pageant, Obama would win by default because House Speaker John Boehner is performing so poorly. But it’s not. It’s about the country that Obama leads, and everybody gets hurt when he cloisters himself off from the dirty process.

Obama’s job approval numbers are already slipping. For the first time in months, more voters disapprove of his performance than approve. Two-thirds of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. The “wrong track” metric is one that often tracks the president’s popularity. A government cataclysm this month will heighten voters’ anxiety and Obama’s jeopardy.

The salt in voters’ wounds is that this fight does not directly address their biggest issue, jobs. It also not about the nation’s long-term, entitlement-fed debt, an existential issue both parties stopped trying to solve. — The National Journal.

The writer seems to place great faith in the “Millennials.” True, some are becoming politically active—as Tea Party members. Others, raised in the entitlement atmosphere of public education, are whining about the lack of “good paying” jobs, lack of diversity and the unfairness of their situation.

Some may come to realize that reality is not fair and become Tea Partiers. The remainder will be locked into a mold of waiting for Mom and Dad, or the government, to bail them out; not believing the days of bailouts are past.

Where does all this lead beyond the next election cycle or two? Nobody knows, but the best place to look for answers is within the Millennial Generation, the nation’s rising leaders and voters. Last month, in a lengthy essay on Millennials [ The Outsiders: How Can Millennials Change Washington If They Hate It?], I concluded that their revolutionary view of government and politics points toward two possible outcomes. One is that they might opt out of Washington, which leads us to some dark places. The second and more likely outcome is they will blow up Washington (“disruption” is the tech-inspired term they use), and build something better outside the current two-party dysfunction.

Millennials don’t fit neatly into either the Democratic or Republican parties. They are highly empowered, impatient, and disgusted with politics today.

“This tension – two parties thinking they are in the trenches dueling it out, and a burgeoning generation who reject trench warfare altogether – is, for me, the key,” said Michelle Diggles a senior policy adviser at the Democratic think-tank Third Way and an expert in demographics and generational politics. “Washington doesn’t get that change isn’t just a slogan. It’s about to become a reality,”

“Neither party,” she said, “gets what’s coming down the pike.”

What happens in Washington this month might make a Millennial Revolution all the more likely. — The National Journal.

When the writer mentions “Millennials,” I see him really referring to the conservative base that is supporting Cruz, Lee and others. Those conservative supporters are washing their hands of the two party, business-as-usual Washington environment and demand change. If you change “Millennial” above to “grassroot conservatives,” I think he is right.

The “Shutdown”, will disrupt some in the short-run. In the long-run, it really won’t make much difference if Boehner and McConnell caves as Obama Reid expects. But! If the real conservatives in Congress apply pressure, and pressure is applied as well from the electorate, perhaps it will be Obama Reid, who ends up failing…to the betterment of us all.

Third Parties

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To the best of my memory, there has only been one successful third party in the history of the United States—the Republican Party. There has been many attempts, such as Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, commonly known as the Bull Moose Party in 1912, Thomas J. Anderson’s American Party in 1976, and Ross Perot’s ‘Independent’ party in 1992. Neither Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas J. Anderson, nor Ross Perot, were successful. Instead, these three third party candidates insured the election of Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. How? They sucked away votes that would have gone to the Republican candidate.

If a third party arose today, would circumstances in the next Presidential election be any different? Probably not. Presidential elections are determined by the highest number of votes. It’s is highly unlikely that any number of minor parties could combine and gather sufficient votes to win.

Control of Congress, however, does not have to be a binary decision—dem or ‘pub. Coalitions can exist, and control Congress.

The Republican Party evolved from the disintegration of the Whig Party in 1856. The Kansas-Nebraska Act divided the Whigs over support for slavery and the creation of new slave states. The Whigs had lost their vision and their core during the slavery debates of that time. The anti-slavery elements of the Whigs created the Republican Party that, in 1860, elected Lincoln for President.

The Whig part died over slavery. The Republican party is teetering, perhaps on its death bed, over socialism and big government. Like the Whigs, the Republican establishment has lost its vision.

In my last post, I said the Republican party is dissolving. It hasn’t broken up yet. But, taking that thought further, how could such a dissolution occur?

There are a number of scenarios that could trigger the breakup. One, that I think is likely, is the public formation of a conservative faction within the Republicans in Washington. We know there are conservatives, all we need do is to watch their voting records. They haven’t, yet, created a voting bloc.

As an example, what if Cruz, Lee, Paul, maybe Rubio and others, like those who supported Ted Cruz’s “long speech” last week, were to form a…let’s call it The Tea Party Caucus. A caucus who would examine each voting issue, whether it is the Continuing Resolution, the Debt Limit, or other controversial issues, and determine how they would vote—as a bloc. That would be a first step towards a third party.

The caucus would divide the conservatives from RINOs like McConnell, McCain, Graham, Cornyn, and others like them in the House. The Tea Party Caucus would vote enbloc. They would present candidates for Congressional offices like Speaker and Majority/Minority Leader. They would form intra and extra-party coalitions to wrest control from the establishment of both parties. I note that Mancin (D-WV) has voted very conservatively for a democrat, often against his party leadership. There are a few more dems like him that may slip away from that democrat dictatorship in Washington.

Come the next national election, the establishment of both party would attempt to remove these conservatives during the primary. At this point, if the establishment blocked conservatives during the primary process, or in the primary election, it is quite possible, the conservatives would run as independents—perhaps creating a real Tea Party or whatever name they chose.

It would be a critical decision. Historically, new parties lose their first elections as did the Republicans in 1856 and the American Party in 1972, 1976 and 1980. The Republicans survived and won in 1860. The American Party failed each time and faded away.

Would the new Tea Party political machine fail too? Perhaps, if there aren’t enough officeholders and candidates, and public, grassroots voters to sustain the new party. If the bigger conservative names like Cruz, Lee, Paul and the others move enmass to the new party, the probability of it surviving is much, much greater. The new party would have existing officeholders in the Senate, some would win seats in the House, others would win as ‘Pubs or Dems and vote as a coalition alongside the new conservative Tea Party Congressmen. Another successful election cycle with more officeholders as members of the new party or aligned politically with them and the new third party would remain as a voter option against the big government dem and ‘Pub parties.

Is this a viable scenario? I have no idea. I’m no political pundit, just a retired engineer with a taste for history and political trends. Will something happen? Yes. Every day brings more evidence of the disintegration of the Republicans. Just look at the antics over defunding Obamacare. The Senate ‘Pubs betrayed their constituents, again, allowing Reid to reinstate Obamacare funding. The CR went back to the House where Boehner assured the funding for Obamacare while cutting a minor tax of medical devices and delaying some of the Obamacare deadlines. The ‘Pub establishment of both houses of Congress has not endorsed funding Obamacare.

The Republican establishment sided with the dems to protect Obamacare. The one beneficial result is that we now know explicitly, who are our ‘Pub Senate traitors. Here is Missouri, a Facebook group, “Replace Roy Blunt,” doubled its membership within hours of Blunt’s vote to allow Reid to reinstate Obamacare funding.

These are the 25 Republicans who voted with Reid to invoke cloture on the CR:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
John Boozman (R-AR)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Jeff Chiesa (R-NJ)
Daniel Coats (R-IN)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Bob Corker (R-TN)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
John Hoeven (R-ND)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Mark Kirk (R-IL)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)
John McCain (R-AZ)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
John Thune (R-SD)
Roger Wicker (R-MS)

— CNS News.

The Cloture vote had 25 establishment ‘Pubs supporting Harry Reid and 19 ‘Pubs who supported Cruz and Lee. Nineteen potential members of a new conservative party. Let’s remember in the coming elections, who supported us, the conservative base, and who, like Roy Blunt, didn’t and supported Harry Reid against us.

Turning up the heat…on the Washington Establishment

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I’ve been hitting the GOP establishment hard these last few months. It’s not a change in my views. I’ve always distrusted the GOP establishment, especially in the persons of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Mitch McConnell.

After the fiasco at the 2012 convention where the establishment rammed through rules to maintain their primacy, the outsiders, those representing the base, rebelled. We’re seeing, now, some of the results from that rebellion.

Locally, one piece of that rebellion was the ousting of David Cole by Ed Martin as the Missouri GOP Chair. David Cole ignored his base and relied on a covey of county chairs to keep his position. The aftermath of the 2012 election removed many of those entrenched in state politics—including David Cole.

With changes in place within the GOP across the country, the focus, now, is the Washington establishment. Their attempts to maintain control over the state organizations is failing as shown in the article below.

The Conservatives

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  August 5th, 2013 at 09:02 PM

The old Buckley Rule is that we should back the most conservative candidate who can win the general election.

What I find more and more is that the NRSC and others declare the person most committed to the status quo the most conservative and work to convince the rest of us that the others are too far right to get elected.

What I have decided is that the Buckley Rule is a stupid rule because it is not a rule, but a saying jackasses use to crap on candidates they don’t like. They did not think Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey and many others in the Senate and House were electable.

While they would point out, similarly, a list of conservatives who did not win, I’d say that’s the point. Views on electability differ and I don’t think you or I should take anyone else’s word for it. We should see for ourselves.

RedState’s rule is simple. We back the conservative in the primary and the Republican in the general. If fortune smiles, we wind up beating the squish in the primary and winning the general. It does not always work out that way, but often it does. There are a lot of Republican incumbents who suck. They are neither kings, nor princes, nor dukes. They do not get to dwell in the seat until they themselves decide to vacate the seat. The people are allowed to boot them out of the seat.

…

…I see no reason to advance on the Democrats with men and women little better than the Democrats they seek to replace. The guy from the NRSC at the RedState Gathering posited that no Republican should ever run against any incumbent Republican. In fact, he said the NRSC would do all it could to defend every incumbent against every Republican challenger and, taking it a step further, insisted that if they had to spend all their money foolishly on primaries and run out of money in the general elections and lose, it’d be conservatives to blame, not the NRSC for not knowing when to fold. The NRSC has become an organization committed to incumbent protection, not actually winning.

…

We Republicans who value our principles should not give free rides to any incumbent solely by virtue of their incumbency. We conservatives should relish the opportunity to become scalp collectors. If the NRSC goes broke defending incumbents that Republicans in states seek to replace with better candidates, I am more than willing to help them go broke. And neither I nor you are alone in that willingness.

I attended a meeting last night with a member of Ed Martin’s organization. It’s not the first meeting I have attended. Unlike his predecessor, David Cole, Ed Martin is extending a hand to grassroots organizations and Tea Partiers. He’s asking for input and for feedback how the state party can be revitalized.

He’s getting an earful.

I don’t know how much Ed Martin will accept and use the criticism he’s receiving about the flaws in the state organization. Some of that feedback will hurt.

An unspoken question was how strong was the movement toward a third party in Missouri. I’m not talking about a shift to the Libertarian Party. The consensus with everyone I’ve spoken with is that the LP platform is still at odds with the vast majority of conservatives. At best, their pull is still in single digits of conservatives.

That does not mean that a new party could not arise. A new party is, for now, unlikely. Why? Because Ed Martin is attempting to bring the disaffected conservatives back into the GOP fold. I hope he’s successful.

The exchange between Bobby Jindal with an NRSC rep at the RedState Gathering is indicative that the establishment is starting to worry as well. That’s good…and bad. It would be good if the Washington establishment saw the writing on the wall and began to accommodate change within the national party.

If the Washington establishment chooses to use their clout to maintain themselves in power, they will fail…and that failure will bring great damage to the country. But, we must remember, the Washington establishment is not there for the betterment of the country, nor to maintain and advance conservative principles, not to elect and support conservatives. They are there to maintain their personal positions as members of The Ruling Class.

We can no longer accept a Washington party aristocracy. One way or another, revolution within the GOP is coming.

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Conservatives fight back…in the Primaries.

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The next election cycle is coming in 2014. It’s an off-year election, one-third of the Senate and every House seat will be on the line—the ballot. The ‘Pub establishment from Renice Priebus and Karl Rove, to the national campaign committees are targetting conservatives. The conservatives and the Tea Party are fighting back.

Regional conservative groups are organizing opposition. These groups and the Tea Party have been used by the establishment for the last time. This election, the ‘Pub establishment pols will have opposition. As the establishment as sown, so shall they now reap.

Mitch McConnell’s primary opponent comes out swinging

Alex Pappas, Political Reporter, 11:39 AM 07/24/2013

The Kentucky businessman who launched a Republican primary challenge against Mitch McConnell on Wednesday told The Daily Caller he’s running because conservatives have a “tremendous level of dissatisfaction” with the Senate minority leader.

“There’s a tremendous level of dissatisfaction with the fact that for 30 years, he’s been just a big government guy,” Matt Bevin said of McConnell. “He votes for every bailout, he votes for every piece of pork, he is a huge fan of earmarking — it has been temporarily banned, as you know — but folks like Mitch McConnell have made a career of greasing the wheels for themselves and for others.”

During a phone interview an hour before he formally announced his campaign at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfurt, Bevin also laid the groundwork for the argument that McConnell is more concerned with his leadership role in Washington than in representing Kentucky.

“I live in the same town as the man, and I’ve literally never seen him one time,” Bevin said of McConnell. “Ever. And it’s not like we move in entirely different worlds. I’ve never seen him one time, except when he was speaking at a political event. Fifteen years. In the same town in Kentucky. That’s odd. And I’m not alone in that.”

Bevin slammed McConnell as a “big proponent of increased taxes,” a “proponent of pork barrel spending” and as “someone who doesn’t have a tremendous amount of respect for the constitution.”

…

“McConnell has voted for higher taxes, bailouts, debt ceiling increases, congressional pay raises, and liberal judges,” the announcer in Bevin’s ad states.

As for McConnell, his new ad slams “Bailout Bevin” for taking $200,000 in state government money last year after his Connecticut factory, which wasn’t insured, burned down.

…

Asked to respond to that ad, which claims Bevin is “not a Kentucky Conservative,” the businessman said that he’s “far more conservative and have spent far more time in Kentucky in the last 15 years than Sen. McConnell has.”

“With respect to a bailout, it’s interesting that a guy who has voted for literally a trillion dollars worth of bailouts for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Wall Street banks, etc., is taking issue with the fact that the people of a town and a state wanted to do something for a business that had burned down, that is historic, that is the oldest family run business in their state, and wanted to gather around, rally around, and do what they could to ensure that those jobs were saved,” Bevin said. “That these employees were not dumped onto the public system.”

Bevins may not be the best candidate, but he certainly can’t be any worse than Mitch McConnell.

John Boehner should take note as well. Every seat in the House is up for election—that is election, not re-election.

Our own Vicky Hartzler should be another establishment rubber-stamp looking over her shoulder. She hasn’t found a pork project yet that she’s hasn’t liked. She rubber-stamped the first Farm Bill with its massive overspending for Food Stamps, crop subsidies and price supports that benefit large and corporate farms. Subsidies and price supports that she and her farmer husband take accept.

When the 2nd version of the Farm Bill, minus the Food Stamps but containing all the pork, was presented to the House, she voted for it again! More pork, more spending, more waste and what is her response? “The catfish duplication was removed.” Big freaking deal! A few paltry millions removed while voting for BILLIONS more in spending.

If the Republican party doesn’t get it’s collective head out, they may, like their Whig predecessors, find their party being split and the ‘Pubs ending up on the historical trash heap. When a vote for either of two parties produces little difference, what other option is left?

‘Pubs, it’s time to consider the welfare of the nation, not for the welfare of your political ambitions and your financial pockets.

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It’s @)$*&(+_*& Monday!

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For all too many, that’s the sentiment today. Moreso, because it’s also Tax Day where we pony up our gelt to the state and FedGov. Mrs. Crucis and I completed that onerous task last month.

As expected, the internet is filled today with articles about taxes—too many, too much, too little return for our money. If we fail to pay, we can expect a visit by federal leg-breakers. The FedGov’s tactics would make the local loan shark blanch.

An article in the American Thinker, expounds on the concept of taxes being the cost of civilization.

The Rising Price of Civilization

By Jon N. Hall

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously opined: “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” Right, but that price is rapidly rising. Might we be paying for more “civilization” than we can afford?

I liked the article’s opening. The rest is just a rant about Missouri’s personal property tax. At one time, “paying the cost of civilization,” may have been accurate. No longer. Today, it seems to me, our taxes are paving our path towards tyranny and a dictatorship.

We see examples all over the country. New York, Colorado and Connecticut have repealed the 2nd Amendment within their states. They ignore McDonald, that declared the U.S. 2nd Amendment applies to the states. The New York law goes into effect today and that state’s Rifle and Pistol Association has filed a lawsuit against Cuomo’s power grab.

In our state of Missouri, our Governor, Jay Nixon, and a number of his department heads have violated state law and subverted the intent of those laws to send private data of the state’s citizens to the FedGov. In particular, Nixon, the Department of Revenue and the State Highway Patrol gave to the IRS a list of Missouri residents who hold CCW permits.

The reason? The IRS wanted to compare those lists with people who receive SSI payments for disability, possibly, mental disability. That would enable them to seize any weapons and ammunition, and possibly jail anyone who appears on both lists.

Nixon and his flunkies also sent Missouri citizen’s private information to a 3rd party to comply with the Read ID act. The problem with that is Missouri law specifically prohibits any state agency from complying with the Read ID act.

In addition to all the above, Colorado is back in the news today. Not only has the state violated the 2nd Amendment, they are now proposing to institutionalize vote fraud.

Voter fraud bill introduced in Colorado

Sunday, April 14, 2013 – Red Pill, Blue Pill by Al Maurer

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., April 14, 2013 — Under the guise of modernizing the elections processes and increasing voter turnout, Democrats have submitted a bill that will leave the state wide open to fraud. House Bill 1303 was written completely in secret by House Democrats — no surprise in this increasingly radical one-party state government — without the input of the Secretary of State’s office or any of the 64 county clerk and recorder offices who oversee elections.

The bill is 126 pages long and completely re-writes election law in Colorado, creating a permanent system of fraudulent elections.

Just as with House Bill 10-0917 exactly three years ago, this bill introduces same-day voter registration and all mail-in ballot elections. But there is much more.

Sponsors of the bill claim that both methods increase voter participation. In fact, it is a recipe for fraud and creates problems where there are none now.

…

If this bill becomes law, prosecution will be even less likely. In one very telling portion of the bill, vote fraud is reduced from a crime to a misdemeanor. The word crime is boldly crossed out:

“IT IS A CRIME CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR”

The intention is pretty clear from that change alone. But there is yet more.

The bill eliminates the category of “inactive voter,” requiring mail ballots to be sent to addresses that have not participated in the voting process in several years. These ballots can be fraudulently returned, causing serious issues of ballot verification.

The residency requirement is reduced from 30 days to 22. A subtle change in the voter’s affidavit is from “I am a resident of the state of Colorado” to “I have been a resident…”

So if you’ve ever lived in Colorado for twenty-two days, come on back and vote!

It seems that every day, the dems/libs make another move to institutionalize their power over us. At some point, we will rebell. I thought that day would be years off. Now, I’m not so sure.

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A divergent path

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If you are a long time reader of this blog, you will have noticed I’ve been somewhat quiet since the election.  There are a variety of reasons for that reticence…long delayed chores, commitments to friends, and just a bit a depression that I think has afflicted all of us.

I like to call myself a political observer. That is what I call myself when around my ‘Pub friends. I’ve disappointed a few that wanted me to be more active in the political process. I was active this year supporting friends who were running for office. I’m glad to say they all won their offices.

Still, it wasn’t enough to win on the larger state and national scale. There have been many who have pontificated where the failure occurred—we didn’t address the moderates, the independents, the Hispanic voters. We needed to address woman and modify our pro-life stance. We should embrace all the illegals like the democrats and further continue to dilute our voter base.

Those are the opinions of the Washington GOP and their political toadies like Ann Coulter, Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. Each of them have sold their souls to the GOP establishment. I want nothing to do with them. Whenever I hear them speak, I understand they really have no concept how the rest of the conservatives really think. They don’t understand why we oppose them—after all, they are the party elite!

No more.

At the core, the Republican Party is fragmenting. The conservative base feels betrayed. Why? Because we believe the party elite crammed a vulnerable candidate down our throats whose conservative credentials were weak at best. Then they modified the party’s convention rules to further weaken conservatives, those not of the establishment to maintain the establishment’s control of the party’s primary, caucus and convention process. The result was that many conservatives shifted to 3rd parties or didn’t vote. It was enough to lose those “swing” states.  Democrat ballot box stuffing didn’t help either.

The party elites believe they can continue as before. That won’t happen. In the states and among political pundits outside of Washington, forces are moving. Here’s just a few comments from a couple of well-known conservatives.

Laura Ingraham unloaded on her radio show with this comment.

Laura Unleashed

Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindahl offers the Republicans some simple advice in the wake of crushing losses on November 6. Be smart…be the ideas party…offer intelligent solutions. This sounds obvious, but approach, language, strategy all have to be carefully considered in the wake of Mitt Romney’s defeat and the loss of Senate contests that should have been gimmes for the GOP. As for those Republicans who believe that the party needs to moderate or change its core beliefs to survive, go for it. I think that is both a political fools errand and and bad policy. Most people are conservative because they believe free markets and limited government, borne out of our Judeo-Christian tradition, represent the best hope for America. Those are the principles I will continue to advocate for, regardless of intra-party squabbling or the panic of the moment.

Bobby Jindal had this to say.

Jindal: End ‘dumbed-down conservatism’

By JONATHAN MARTIN | 11/13/12 4:22 AM EST

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday called on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party” and make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive economic message that pre-empts efforts to caricature the GOP as the party of the rich.

…

“We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal told POLITICO in a 45-minute telephone interview. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”

He was just as blunt on how the GOP should speak to voters, criticizing his party for offending and speaking down to much of the electorate.

“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal said. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.”

…

Jindal, a Brown Graduate and Rhodes Scholar, is already a favorite of conservative intellectuals and his assessment that Republican difficulties owe as much to economics as demographics will be well-received by right-leaning thinkers. Since last week, a sort of backlash to the backlash has sprouted up, with some conservatives castigating what they see as too much knee-jerk pandering on immigration and not enough discussion of what they see as the party’s unimaginative, donor-driven fiscal policies.Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, said the GOP “must reject identity politics” and “treat folks as individuals, as Americans, not as members of special interest groups.”

Raising Romney’s damaging comments about voters who don’t pay income taxes, Jindal urged the GOP to make clear they want the support of every American.

“The Republican Party is going to fight for every single vote,” he said. “That means the 47 percent and the 53 percent, that means any other combination of numbers going up to 100 percent.”

Bobby Jindal will be the incoming leader of the Republican Governors Association. There’s more at the website if you wish to follow the link. 

Across the country, groups of conservatives are organizing, planning and gathering. Some call for a new 3rd party. Others point out that we already have conservative 3rd parties and none have been able to draw double-digit percentages in elections at any level. More, this time, believe as I do that change to the Republican Party must come from within. To do that, we must weed out the establishment drones at the local and state levels. Then we can seize the national central committee.

Those who used our support this last election cycle must declare their stance now. Are you for us, the conservatives who worked to get you elected or for the establishment? The time to choose is coming. Choose wisely.

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A Nation Divided: Kith and Kin

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On Monday, Michael Barone predicted a win for Romney.  He was wrong. To his credit, he wrote the piece below for the National Review recording his thoughts about the country at large.  It mirrors my concern as I’ve written here on this blog for the last several years.

The nation reached a turning point yesterday and turned toward a path not of my choosing. We can blame our loss to a number of reasons: 3rd parties siphoning votes from Romney, dem vote fraud in the larger metro areas…sufficient fraud to tip the balance, or the growth of the parasite class of unproductive drones.

The reason matters not at this point. We are already on that path and we know not the perils we’ll face. We can be assured that perils will come from within and without.

Some cry that the Great Experiment has failed. That may be. That point could be a way-station ahead of us as we trod this path. We do know that troubles lie ahead.

Michael Barone is a much more polished writer than I am. I’ll let him speak for me.

Two Americas
The country is no longer culturally cohesive.

By Michael Barone

Michael Barone

Michael Barone

You know who won the election (or whether we face another Florida, 2000), and as I write, I don’t.

But whether Barack Obama is elected to a second term or Mitt Romney is elected the 45th president, the contours of their support during this fiercely fought campaign show that we live in two Americas.

The culturally cohesive America of the 1950s that some of us remember, usually glossing over racial segregation and the civil-rights movement, is no longer with us and hasn’t been for some time.

That was an America of universal media, in which everyone watched one of three similar TV channels and newscasts every night. Radio, 1930s and 1940s movies, and 1950s and early-1960s television painted a reasonably true picture of what was typically American.

That’s not the America we live in now. Niche media has replaced universal media.

One America listens to Rush Limbaugh, the other to NPR. Each America has its favorite cable news channel. As for entertainment, Americans have 100-plus cable channels to choose from, and the Internet provides many more options.

Bill Bishop highlighted the political consequences of this in his 2008 book, The Big Sort. He noted that in 1976 only 27 percent of voters lived in counties carried by one presidential candidate by 20 percent or more. In 2004, nearly twice as many, 48 percent, lived in these landslide counties. That percentage may be even higher this year.

We’re more affluent than we were in the 1950s (if you don’t think so, try doing without your air conditioning, microwaves, smartphones, and Internet connections). And we have used this affluence to seal ourselves off in the America of our choosing while trying to ignore the other America.

We tend to choose the America that is culturally congenial. Most people in the San Francisco Bay area wouldn’t consider living in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, even for much better money. Most metroplexers would never relocate to the Bay Area.

There are plenty of smart and creative and successful people in both Americas. But they don’t like to mix with each other these days.

They especially don’t like to talk about politics and the cultural issues that, despite the prominence of economic concerns today, have largely determined our political allegiances over the last two decades.

One America tends to be traditionally religious, personally charitable, appreciative of entrepreneurs, and suspicious of government. The other tends to be secular or only mildly religious, less charitable, skeptical of business, and supportive of government as an instrument to advance liberal causes.

The more conservative America tends to be relatively cohesive. Evangelical Protestants and white Catholics make common cause; the 17th-century religious wars are over. Southern or northern accents don’t much matter.

That’s typical of the Republican party, which has always had core support from people who are seen as typical Americans but are not by themselves a majority in our always diverse country.

The more liberal America tends to be diverse. Like Obama’s 2008 coalition, it includes many at the top and at the bottom of the economic ladder.

That’s typical of the Democratic party, a coalition of disparate groups — immigrant Catholics and white southerners long ago, blacks and gentry liberals today.

Ronald Reagan, speaking the language of the old, universal popular culture, could appeal to both Americas. His successors, not so much. Barack Obama, after an auspicious start, has failed to do so.

As a result, there are going to be many Americans profoundly unhappy with the result of this election, whichever way it goes. Those on the losing side will be especially angry with those whose candidate won.

Americans have faced this before. This has been a culturally diverse land from its colonial beginnings. The mid-20th-century cultural cohesiveness was the exception, not the rule.

We used to get along by leaving each other alone. The Founders established a limited government, neutral on religion, allowing states, localities, and voluntary associations to do much of society’s work. Even that didn’t always work: We had a Civil War.

An enlarged federal government didn’t divide mid-20th-century Americans, except on civil-rights issues. Otherwise, there was general agreement about the values government should foster.

Now the two Americas disagree, sharply. Government decisions enthuse one and enrage the other. The election may be over, but the two Americas are still not on speaking terms.

As we contemplate our future, it is time to plan how we can collectively and individually survive this coming period with our values, our fortunes, our kith and kin family. Has the Great Experiment failed? I don’t know. It has been, however, severely injured. What would/will happen to that 50% that voted the rest of us into servitude? What will happen now when the parasites match or outnumber the productive? The scenes from Atlas Shrugged appear to be more and more probable.

Perhaps it does, really, come down to kith ‘n kin when we judge one another by whether he or they will guard our back and help us defend ourselves against mutual enemies. Perhaps history and cultures are cyclic. The barbarians have return to assault our gates.

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