That appears to be the state of the republican party today. Fifteen ‘pub senators joined dems to pass the immigration amnesty bill. Oh, they’ll claim there’s no amnesty and the border will be secure, etc., etc., etc.

They lie.

Here are the 15 Republican senators who voted in favor of invoking cloture on the amendment, according to the Weekly Standard:

• Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
  
• Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
  
• Jeffrey Chiesa (RINO-NJ)
  
• Susan Collins (R-ME)
  
• Bob Corker (R-TN)
  
• Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
  
• Lindsey Graham (RINO-SC)
  
• Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
  
• Dean Heller (R-NV)
  
• John Hoeven (R-ND)
  
• Mark Kirk (R-IL)
  
• John McCain (RINO-AZ)
  
• Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
  
• Marco Rubio (R-FL)
  
• Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Some of the senators above will be up for re-election in 2014. Let’s not forget them. We don’t need more democrats in the Senate.

***

Yesterday I wrote about the political technique called Logrolling. It’s a tactic where pols exchange votes to pass their favorite piece of pork. John Boehner’s and Vicky Hartzler’s votes to pass the Food Stamp Bill are prime example. The problem with this tactic is that democrats lie and when they are expected to reciprocate, they don’t. Repeated use of this tactic fits the definition of insanity—doing the same time after time while expecting different results.

Tactics like this one serves no one. It doesn’t gain the pols any political advantage and alienates their constituents. But the ‘pub establishment continues as before—acting insanely.

Cal Thomas, a writer whom I once admired, says we’re now entering a new era, of those looking backward and those looking forward. He even cites passages from Newt Gringrich’s upcoming book to support his premis. His premis is that we, who revere the past—the Constitution as it was originally written and intended, are losers locked into the past. What Cal Thomas fails to prove is whether this forward looking stance provides any benefits to our personal liberty and security.

Breakout from politics of the past

By CAL THOMAS | JUNE 24, 2013 AT 1:30 PM

The “Faith and Freedom” Coalition held a gathering last week in Washington, D.C. It resembled many similar conservative assemblies: mostly white male speakers, a mostly white, middle-age audience and mostly full of attacks on President Obama, liberals, Democrats and Washington.

That is not a winning strategy for political victory. Neither are appeals to a bygone era that is unlikely to return. The social, financial and governmental dysfunction we are experiencing are symptoms of something far deeper. The foundations that built and have sustained America are being destroyed. Too many Republicans and conservatives mistakenly believe what’s needed is a paint job, like those false storefronts painted on closed-down businesses in some Northern Ireland towns to hide its struggling economy during the G-8 summit.

Instead of more navel gazing, Republicans and conservatives (they are not always the same) must seize the future rather than hold on to the past.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes America may be on the verge of another major breakthrough on several levels, but he warns in a book titled “Breakout,” to be published this fall (Regnery Publishing, Inc.), about powerful forces opposed to the advance. “Prison guards of the past,” he calls them, versus “pioneers of the future.” If the future has publicists, he says, the past has lobbyists.

Gingrich believes, and polls reflect this, that people are weary of the left-right, Republican vs. Democrat repetitive drama. He thinks the next decade will be more future vs. past.

What is needed, he says, “is a movement dedicated to identifying and encouraging the pioneers of the future,” while fighting for the policies and structural changes that will hasten its arrival. He labels it the “Breakout Party,” though he thinks this shift can still be achieved within the GOP.

Gingrich says a breakout occurs when “so many different new scientific and technological capabilities are emerging and being translated into usable products by entrepreneurs in a dynamic consumer-led market that the very capacity of life, for the individual, for society, for business, and for government, are changing.”

Neither party has a clear vision or understanding of what this can mean for the country. Neither, says Gingrich, does either party have a strategy for knitting together a coalition of these pioneers who are already creating the future, but largely under the media’s radar. The media could be said to be one of the “prison guards,” because they mostly focus on the old arguments, rather than on solutions.

Thomas’ next statement is where he diverges from conservative philosophy.

House leadership last Tuesday brought a bill to the floor that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill has zero chance of passing the Senate. It has less chance of being signed by the President. Instead, Republicans should place themselves on the side of giving more information to women, empowering them by making it law that they view a sonogram of their baby before they have an abortion.

Yes, Cal, let’s just give up on the whole anti-abortion thing and give in to the libs. That’s a real winning solution…for them.

“The opportunity for Republicans to play the lead role in developing a breakout system is historic,” says Gingrich, “and will both reward the party with victory and reward the country with vast new opportunities for jobs, economic growth, long-term prosperity, greater learning, better health and greater security.”

In this last statement, Gingrich is correct. But Cal Thomas completely misses the point. Conservatives must understand the new technologies and how they will affect society for our benefit and detriment. It is the conventional party structure who is locked into the past, not the political and philosophical views that govern our purpose as we enter this new era.