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Strictly Right Radio – Episode 88

Despite Ryan’s common-sense approach to governance (which, obviously, is somewhat comforting given his position as budget chairman) Bachmann and the Tea Party Express are still trying to steal the show and stand apart from the Republican Party. Like many conservatives, I have some concerns with the direction Speaker John Boehner et al may take the party, but allowing Paul Ryan to deliver the speech gives conservatives — you know, the Americans who matter — the chance to hear what the GOP wants for the country and hold them to account later. Perhaps it’s somewhat idealistic, but I’m in the “give the party a chance” camp for now.

Like most people, I’ll be keeping Fox News on to watch the official response, not partaking in the soon-to-be-failed attempt by the Tea Party Express to replace said response. Don’t expect any servers to be crashing on their website.

In related news:

If the GOP does have a Michele Bachmann problem, it’s an issue it may have to face in the lead up to 2012. Bachmann recently traveled to Iowa for a fundraiser. When asked several weeks ago if she was considering a presidential run, she said, “I’m going to Iowa—there’s your answer.”

Rep. Steve Cohen, who had previously equated the Tea Party with the KKK, compared the GOP to Nazis on the House floor this week. Perhaps he got his cue from another prominent Democrat:

If you dare oppose Obamacare, or the Democrats in any other way, you are a Nazi. But remember, it is the ‘heated rhetoric’ of the right that we have to fear…

From what is know about the shooter, Jared Loughner, it is safe to conclude that he is mentally unstable.

Seemingly minutes after the shooting was first reported, the media  jumped on the ‘Tea Party militia’ explanation. It was automatically assumed that Loughner was a registered Republican, and probably a Plain supporter. In reality, a case can be made that Loughner is a Leftist. Loughner listed the Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books, was described as “left-wing” in 2007, and was a critic of President Bush.

Never letting the facts get in the way of a story, The New York Times, led by Paul Krugman, laid blame for the shooting at the feet of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other conservatives. Members of Congress, and their amen corner in the media, have determined that Sarah Palin is to blame for the shooting. Arizona Sheriff, and well documented political hack, Clarence Dupnik, targeted rhetoric from talk radio and cable news:

The Left has developed a cottage industry decrying the evils of ‘profiling.’ Every security measure implemented at, say, the airport, is applied equally to all travelers, from young Muslim men, to old Norwegian grandmothers, all because we are so averse to profiling.

The Left has demonstrated their aversion to profiling in the past. When Nidal Malik Hasan shot up Ft. Hood, yelling “Allah Akbar!” we were told to wait for the facts and not jump to any conclusions.

However, when there is a chance that the suspect may be a conservative, it is safe to run wall to wall coverage of pure speculation, and assert conclusions based on that speculation as fact.

When a terrorist tried to bomb Time Square last year Mayor Michael Bloomberg immediately asserted that the terrorist was a “homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something.” Turns out the Time Square bomber was… a Muslim terrorist.

But this weekend in Arizona a Democratic Congresswoman was shot and the media immediately assumed the shooter was a Tea Party member, inspired by Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. How did the media reach such a conclusion before the facts came in? They profiled.

The Left sees every conservative as a Timothy McVeigh waiting to happen. Isn’t that the very type of profiling the Left professes to abhor? If the shooting in Arizona had been politically motivated, would it not seem pertinent to the case that the judge who was shot and killed was a Bush appointee? And lets not forget that if anything, Jared Loughner is a man of the Left, not the Right.

The Left has created yet another double standard. When it comes to terrorists flying planes into buildings, it is ‘wrong’ to profile Muslims. We are almost asked to believe that the fact that all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Muslim was incidental. However, when a lone nut, who happens to be white, opens fire on crowd, it must be the Tea Party. What is on display is the Left and the media’s bigotry, their bigotry against all those ideologically at odds with them.

By the way, when President Obama said “if they [Republicans] bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” that was okay, right? Only ‘right-wing extremists’ can incite violence, right?

Liberals in Congress and the media are worried that the GOP actually plans on fighting the Democrat socialist agenda.

Jennifer Steinhauer and Robert Pear lamented in the New York Times:

The health care law, entitlement programs, new limits on emissions of greenhouse gases from oil refineries and power plants, and other legislation that Republicans say cannot be justified by a strict interpretation of the Constitution — a document the new leaders plan to read on the House floor on Thursday — are all in the cross hairs.

While President Obama and Republicans were able to work together during last month’s lame-duck session — to the vocal consternation of the most partisan ends of each party’s base — to pass a tax package and a variety of last-minute legislation, including the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and the ratification of the anti-nuclear proliferation treaty with Russia, such bipartisan consensus seems unlikely at the outset of the new House session.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, who is in line to succeed Ms. Pelosi, has said that this time around he would lead efforts to revive the private sector by reducing the size of government — cutting federal regulation, taxes and spending, including the budget of Congress itself.

Mr. Boehner also said Republicans would alter House rules to make it easier to curb government spending and to require more public disclosure about the work of the House.

House Republicans plan on passing a full repeal of Obamacare as a symbolic act, acknowledging that it will be stopped in the Senate, or vetoed by the President. However, after setting the tone, the GOP plans on defunding and dismantling Obamacare piece by piece. Additionally, with Paul Ryan’s Road Map the GOP is finally starting to talk about realistic entitlement reforms.

Fueled by a reverence for the Constitution and an acknowledgment of reality, Republicans won in 2010 by representing the alternative to Obamunism. If the Grand Old Party wishes to remain in power surrender is not an option.

Mitch McConnell stated that his foremost political priority is ensuring that Barack Obama is a one-term president. Republicans are openly stating that they plan on using Obamacare as an albatross to hang around Democrats in 2012. The only way to fix the economy, and the country, is to get government out of the way. The only way to get government out of the way is to defeat Democrats. The GOP, at long last, is ready to play hardball.

On the other side of the aisle, Democrats believe that a renewed debate over Obamacare will actually help them. The Left believes that the only problem with Obama’s government takeover of healthcare is the branding. If only the American people really understood how great Obamacare is, they’d support the monstrosity.The fights over Obamacare, and liberty, are fights the GOP should welcome, and decisively win.

The legislative plan for the GOP is quite simple; Barry Goldwater spelled it out in 1960:

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is `needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

For a modern interpretation “Undo It” works:

The sad fact is that Senate Republicans have been complicit in allowing awful legislation to pass. Lindsey Graham, yes, that Lindsey Graham, actually excoriated his own party for caving in to the Democrats unnecessarily:

“When it’s all going to be said and done, Harry Reid has eaten our lunch,” Graham said on Fox News radio. “This has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn’t have passed in the new Congress.”

Republican senators have broken with the party’s leaders on several key votes in order to advance some of President Obama’s top policies during the lame-duck. GOP members defected to pass a repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” and have done likewise to secure likely ratification for the START Treaty. Some Republicans might allow a health bill for 9/11 first responders to move forward, while three Republicans voted to end debate on the DREAM Act, an ultimately unsuccessful immigration bill…

“I can understand the Democrats being afraid of the new Republicans; I can’t understand Republicans being afraid of the new Republicans,” Graham lamented on WTMA radio. “They’re not opportunities to take everything you couldn’t do for two years and jam it. It’s literally what they’re doing, across the board. And after a while, I stop blaming them, and I blame us.”

When Lindsey Graham is faulting the GOP for caving in to the Democrats…

The fact that the Democrats have completely ignored the will of the people and pursued their radical agenda is to be expected. That Republicans have repeatedly capitulated is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, there are still too many Republicans who want to go along to get along. They have no real belief in reform. In fact, some Republicans actually fear and disdain the reform movement. The elitists within the party still look down on the ‘uncouth’ Tea Party.

Because President Obama pursued such a radical agenda in his first two years in office, the GOP wilderness years were cut short. While it was of the utmost importance to block the Democrats, the Republicans quick return to power has allowed some of the deadwood to stay in place.

In 2010 the Tea Party movement stayed within the Republican Party. The energy that they provided launched the GOP to victory. If the Grand Old Party wants to keep the movement together, elected officials better realize that the time for compromises, in which Republicans acquiesce to Democrats is over. Now is the time for bold, conservative leadership.

In his brilliant acceptance speech, Senator-elect Paul detailed the inexorable link between freedom and capitalism. Paul pointed out that the United States that is the freest and most developed nation in human history. Furthermore, Paul explained that the wealth and freedom that the United States enjoys is nothing to apologize for, a message lost on President Obama. In that vein, Paul excoriated the President for traveling abroad and denigrating his own country, and the its free market system. Unlike President Obama, Rand Paul has a firm belief in American Exceptionalism.

Additionally, Paul detailed why it is harmful to bailout broke institutions, be they socialist countries, or insolvent banks. Rand Paul actually understands that the country is out of money. His willingness to stand-up for fiscal sanity is a much needed addition to the United States Congress.

Rand Paul’s embrace of the Tea Party ensures that there will be another movement conservative in the Senate. Moreover, it is highly unlikely that anyone related to Ron Paul (love him or hate him) will be co-opted by the GOP establishment. Look for Senator Paul to be a bare-knuckles brawler for common sense, Constitutional conservatism for many years to come.

When Rob Ford announced his intention run for mayor of Toronto you would not have been blamed for laughing at the proposition. Toronto is quite possibly the most liberal city in North America. The current mayor, who was elected for two consecutive terms, is a shade to the left of Fidel Castro. No way would Toronto elect an unapologetic, uncompromising conservative, or so the thinking went. However, Rob Ford ran a campaign grounded in common sense conservatism. And he won an overwhelming victory.

If conservatism can win in Toronto in can win anywhere. Rob Ford being elected Mayor of Toronto would be like Sarah Palin being elected Governor of New York. The lesson is, conservatism wins. The ‘experts’ incessantly tell us that the only way conservatives can win is by moderating, and becoming leftist-lite. In reality, milquetoast conservatives lose. If the only option is between a principled big spender  and an unprincipled big spender, why would voters ever go for the unprincipled option?

Instead of trying to appease the pseudo-conservative intelligentsia, conservatives should focus on first principles. Common sense ideas like low taxes and limited government are sure winners. Whenever conservatism is on the ballot, it wins. The most difficult challenge is getting conservatism on the ballot.

Establishment party officials do their best to smear, defame and defeat conservatives within their own party. Remember, this year’s batch of Tea Party backed candidates had to take on their own party, often in hotly contested primaries. In fact, many in the establishment refused to endorse victorious Tea Party candidates (see: Crist, Charlie). The ruling class fears citizen legislators who are inspired by a belief in limited government.

Despite the best efforts of the elites and their toadies in the media, conservatism wins. Rob Ford’s victory should embolden conservatives everywhere.

You can listen to this episode online here or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.