Townhall meeting on 8/31/09 ( aka me on the news)

Townhall meeting on 8/31/09

On Monday night I drove to Holland Michigan to attend a town hall meeting held by my Congressman Pete Hoekstra, he has held two other meetings in his district during this recess, and has held three of the four in Michigan with only one other member of congress having the nerve to face his constituents and answer questions about the health care proposal. Now unlike alot of these meetings all over the country, this one was rather civil. There where none of the radicals holding up obnoxious signs calling President Obama a nazi, nor was there any of the tambarine banging, no bathing and shaving hippies trying to shout anyone down.
There was a stranding room only crowd, and lost of questions from a mixed crowd, I even got called on and asked basically " with the purchase of GM, the money for cars, the money to help people pay there morgages what shouldn't we expect the government to do for us and if the public option is passed in ten years you wont beable to by health insurance because no company can compete with a government that doesnt need to makea profit" my point was that there is too much government intervention, so it was nice to be involved in government and the whole process, it also made made me realize that Pete Hoekstra is a stand up guy, I was on the fence about him but not anymore, I added the clip of me on the news give it a listen and tell me what you think.

http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/politics/Hoekstra_holds_health_care_town_hall

A liberal friend of mine asked me to write a blog about this subject so I thought I would swing for the fences and see if I couldn't make his head explode. I am not blind follower of the Governors but I do admire her and can also see some area's where she needs work. Tell me what you think.



Sarah Steps Down

The major news of the forth of July weekend was the announcement that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would resign as Governor of Alaska before July is over. Well immediately all of the talking heads in the media claimed that Sarah Palin was done politically, they all began to call her a quiter they claim she was and is a flash in the pan and will now be nothing more then a foot note in history. I could not disagree with this assessment more, although my opinion of the Governor has always been divergent from that of the main stream media. I don't think she is stupid because she is from Alaska, because she didn't go to an ivy league school, or because she hasn't spent countless hours mingling with the "right people" at cocktail parties in New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C. I think she has a real world common sense that is lost on most of the establishment in this country in both parties.

The powers that be in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike have a vested interested in keeping the status quo operating, in making sure that someone like Governor Palin is either marginalized or brought into the "insider" fold, you see because insiders have a very narrow range of vision, weather its to the left or the right they only see insider solutions to Americas problems. They are the ones who have gotten America into the mess we are in now, people like John McCain ( Who I voted for and respect as a leader and an veteran) Harry Reid, Newt Gingrinch, and Nancy Pelosi, they have on what I like to refer to as Washington blinders, they can't make header or tail of people like Governor Palin or those who support her because her and people who supporter her don't think likey they do. While I believe Governor Palin still has some work to do before she earns my vote should she run in 2012 I respect and like her because she is an outsider, she is relatively new to the process, she thinks like a person who has been living in the real world not the washington/new york bubble.

Was resigning as Governor a good idea? If she had been the governor of any other state save Hawaii, and had not been the '08 Veep nominee I would have said it was political suicide, however if you are Sarah Palin and you want to one day possibly be President, this idea of having to fly sixteen plus hours everytime you want to give a speech or raise money or campaign for a candidate for office to bank some good will is not tenible, and this is a big one the vile rage and hatred that the left has shown towards this women and her family since she was announced boarders on insane, from the moment she was announced in Ohio the left and their allies in the media set out not to defeat her but to destroy her. Why would they want to destroy this women you might ask? Here are just a few of the reasons for the vile illogical rage towards this women.

1) First she broke the identity politics mold, which to elite liberals is the worst thing a person can do. She by the way for doing this is in the same class as people like Clarence Thomas, and Joseph Liberman. How might you ask did she break the mold? She was at the time of her selection an elected women who was actually a conservative. That breaks the mold that women, especially middle class women are all a bunch of left leaning kooky liberals.
2)Class Warfare; She is from middle/working class roots and dares to be a conservative, she is a genuine christian, she seems by all accounts to be in a happy marriage ( that pisses off liberals to no end for some silly reason).
3) She is unapologetically Pro-life, proving it so by actually giving birth to a special needs child.
4) She was not educated on the east coast, as a matter of fact most if not nearly all of her life has been spent away from the east coast which by its self makes liberals think people are stupid simply because you wheren't educated on the east coast, or at a few santified colleges on the west coast. Her values are not theirs and she can fire up millions of her fellow citizens. Over fifty eight million Americans voted for Sarah Palin.

These are just a few of the reasons why liberals hate the Governor, and let me just say their are a lot of us who like the Governor, who like her even more because of how much and by whom the Governor is hated by.

Now let me tell you why the governor resigned. It was not because she is not smart, it is not because she didn't want to do the job. It was because she felt that she was mafinalized by those who where out to destroy her, the fact that she and her family had to spent over half a million dollars fighting frivilous ethics complaints all of which where dismissed, and the state had to spend millions to defend against these people who have taken a page out of the Saul Alinsky playbook by trying to bury this women and her family for political reasons.

Also she resigned I think to give her family a slight break, because as along as she was in the Governors office the media will continue to try and destroy this family, they will continue to say horrible things about her children and her family as a way to try to destroy her. It is disgusting, that anyone could attack children like this for political reasons.

I believe Sarah Palin has a vision for where she wants to lead this nation. She is genuine, and that can't be faked. She has a lot of raw talent and gifts that where being waisted in Alaska. Oh and her resignation speech was genuine, and while it was not the most polished speech ever it was genuine. She knows what its like to be an independent women, she knows what its like to live west of the mississippi, she knows what its like to not go to an ivy league school. That is the magic of the Governor.

While I don't know what the future holds for Sarah Palin, I think the liberals are doing it again and that is underestimating her, and its gonna cost them. I think if she can prove she has the chops, if she can keep from being destroyed by the liberal media, if she can stand on the stage with serious men and women on the issues I think she could be a force to be dealt with.

Birth Certificate Nonsense

It seems that there is a small but very vocal and obnoxious group of people out there on the internet, they are passionate and horribly miss guided. They are the group of people who claim that Obama is not eligible to be President because he was not born in America, they claim that he falsified his birth record, that he was actually born in Kenya or if he was born in the U.S. the fact that he lived in Kenya forfeited his U.S. citizenship there by making him ineligible to serve as President. I believe this theory to boarder on insanity. I see this group of people in the same light that I saw those groups that claimed that Bush new about 9/11 or the ones that claim that his whole reasoning for going to war was to make Haliburton money.

These sorts of theories are the result of PDS ( Political derangement syndrome) by which some of the most ardent opponents of a politician seem to develop an adversion to the very existence of said politician, they believe that every motive of the person is evil, that who conspiriacies where masterminded by them, that they want to harm America and they oppose this person out of hand no matter what he or she does.

Some great examples of this are Bush Derangement syndrome by some on the left and in the media, which resulted in abandonment of any logic or reasoning when talking about George W. Bush or anything surrounding him and manifested it's self in pure hatred of him, causing in many case the loss of political fights by these people because do to their syndrome they where unable to formulate a cognitive political alternative other then to spew "BUSH IS A NAZI""BUSH LIED KIDS DIE' "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" this caused them political defeats at the ballot box and only fueled their illogical speculation that there was a conspiracy.

Now there are already some signs of ODS (Obama Derangement syndrome) among some mainstream conservatives such as Sean Hannity and this is a bad sign but after reading and listening to some of these kooks rave about how Obama isn't a citizen I realize that those of us who are conservative must quell this kind of talk as it only harms our cause. See I oppose most of Obama's agenda but I don't think he is a bad person, I don't think he sits around with his advisers rubbing his hands together and laughing in an evil manner wondering how he can sell out America, and I don't think George Bush did either.

Both men had there countries best interest at heart as they saw it threw the prism of there own political philosiphies we must not forget that. We, those of us who have strong views and an interest in politics I mean, must stop seeing those who have different views as us as bad, or evil or wanting to do harm to America or Americans. They are simply of a different philosophy, that we might think is wrong but not evil!

We must resist the urge to give in to the fringe of each political extreme and party, we must realize that the extremes on both sides to do not speak for the mainstream. For example on the conservative side Sean Hannity does not Represent me, I may agree with him 90-95% of the time but he never wants to find conservative solutions or talk about how to bring people back to conservatism he wants to talk about reverend Wright and Bill Ayers ( We get it Sean, Obama showed poor judgment in some of his associations can we now talk about the war, the deficit, taxes, and the economy PLEASE?) or on the liberal side people like George Soro's or Al Franken who are far left zealots who assume anyone who believes in low taxes, balanced budgets, and gun rights is a racists, sexists, bigot, homophobe, anyone who strays from liberal orthodoxy must be destroyed both politically and personally, look at the way Joe Lieberman was treated in 2006, this was a man who in 2000 was nominated by the Democratic party to be Vice President, he has championed liberal causes all of his adult life from woman's rights, to civil rights, to higher taxes on the rich, to larger involvement of government in the day to day lives of Americans yet because he came out for the war in Iraq, because he has been a strong supporter of the war on terror he was attacked viciously, he was primaried with millions spent to defeat him, he lost the Democratic primary and ran as an Independant and won. He then endorsed John McCain because the two men are friends and because he felt McCain was better qualified to be President and for this he has been adandoned by the left, ravaged politically and personally and it is a shame.

Now it is groups like this one, the anti-Obama citizenship group that foments political hatred and polarization. I call upon rational conservatives to denounce this theory. If you oppose Obama that is fine, I oppose much of his agenda but I do it with logic and reason and from a place of respect. He won the election for the most part fair and square now he has the chance to govern, we must oppose him when we disagree but never be disagreeable.

Newt might very well be the man

As I watch the current goings on in Washington D.C., as I see the Federal government pour more and more tax payer money into "bailing" out failing business and getting the governments tenticals into the private sector, as I also watch the opposition party lay down to the massive government intervention in the free market as our government veers wildly to the left of the political spectrum, I am more and more convinced that we as conservatives as those who believe capitalism is the best way to prosperity and freedom for people that we need an idea man to step forward, someone with great intellect, someone who can come up with conservative solutions to Americans problems and that man may very well be Newt Gingrinch.
The former Speaker of the House is a PhD is brilliant, he understands how government works, he is willing to think outside the box, he has a strong mind and is willing to make hard decisions, so while I have doubts about his electablity simply because of the amount of baggage he has and the fact that the media has such vile rage and hatred towards him they would throw everything at him, if you think they hated Sarah Palin let Newt be the nominee and watch the foaming at the mouth of the MSM.
So while I don't know if Newt can win I do know he can articulate Idea's and challenge with authority those who are veering left with great passion. So Newt might be the man the GOP needs to help to come up with a clear conservative voice.

Government motors

Well today General Motors a once great American company announced that they where filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and of course they also mentioned that they would need yet more money from big daddy government, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty billion dollars, and of course the government has agreed to give them the money in exchange for more common stock in the company bringing the governments ownership stake in that company to a whopping sixty percent, that's right the government using tax payers dollars owns sixty percent of a major American company, the same government that since ninety fifty four only balanced the federal budget four out of the last fifty five years, the same government that has bankrupted social security, has passed entitlement after entitlement without coming up with ways to pay for it without taxing the citizenry into poverty, the same government that is over run with bureaucrats and politicians many of whom have never run any for profit business prior to their rise to power are now in the business of telling private companies how to make money, private companies that where run by people who where actual business professionals and they still failed, yet now these self appointed saviors in Washington, most of whom know nothing about how to build or sell cars, or even what it takes to run a successful business have invested tens of billions of dollars more in tax payers money into a failing business.

The President gave a major speech today on the GM filing, stating that while the government would own sixty percent of the company that his government in no way wanted to be "in the car business" he reassured the American public that GM would remain a company run by private sector individuals. While this speech was designed to put the American people at ease it rings hollow to me as the man appointed to run GM thought bankruptcy has been appointed by the government, anyone who thinks that the government will not be running GM is living in fantasy land.

I believe in the free market, in the idea that if a company is gonna fail it should be allowed to fail, that is how the free market works. Bailing companies that do bad business is a horrible message to send it gets the government into the private sector, it also rewards failure, I am worried about the course of our nation and world, the fact that government is taking a larger role in the private sector is a slippery slope on the road to tyranny.

Ode To Jack

Last week former NFL football player, former Congressman, and former Vice Presidential Candidate Jack Kemp died at the age of 73 after a bout with cancer. Kemp played Quarterback for the Buffalo Bills before Running for Congress in 1979, serving in Congress for ten years. As a congressman he championed conservative causes like low taxes, supply side economics, pro-life, and was an all around decent fellow.
He also ran for President in 1988 losing the nomination to Vice President George Bush. He was then appointed as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George H.W.Bush and served distinguishably. He left public office in 1993 when President Clinton took office, however he continued to be a champion for conservative causes. In 1996 the Republican party nominee for President Senator Bob Dole of Kansas broke with conventional wisdom and choose Kemp as his running mate. The Dole /Kemp ticket lost to the Clinton/Gore ticket but during the election Kemp proved himself to be a smart and able campaigner and public servant.

Now that he is gone, I hope that this man will be remembered as a good American and a good champion of conservative causes and I pray for his family in this their time of loss. Also the Dole /Kemp ticket was the first one I voted for so it has a special place in my heart.

Updates from Specter to Tea Parties to Kemp

(Well a lot has happened since my last post on this blog so I will be updating tonight and the next few days so that my reader(s) don't think I have started go go soft.)

April 29,2009

Run Tom Run

Monday was a big day in American Politics, the U.S.Senate just became filibuster proof. The Democratic majority was just increased by 1 to 60, well it will be 60 once Al Franken of Minnesota finished "Finding" all of the votes in that contested race. This means that there will be no checks on the Democrats as they push there agenda over the next two years. Who might you ask did the Democrats gain? Well they gained a seasoned Senate Veteran, thats right Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched from the GOP to the Democratic party, stating that the party had tacked decidedly to the political right over the last 29 years. Now this puzzeled me as a student of history and especially political history I find this answer to be dishonest as Specter first ran for the U.S.Senate in 1980, on the top of the Republican ticket that year was a man named Ronald Reagan, one of the most conservative Presidents in the last seventy-five years, the GOP has been dominated by Conservatives since the late 1970's whenever we have nominated moderates we have lost, Gerald Ford 1976, Bob Dole 1996, and John McCain 2008 and Specter has always had a liberal to moderate voting record.
Yet now suddenly he seems to think that the conservative party that was conservative when he first ran is now to conservative. The reality of the situation is that Specter, who voted for the Presidents stimulus package which millions opposed is now facing real political heat from his parties base, let me put it in a way my Democratic Friends can understand, remember how you felt when Joe Lieberman came out on America's side in the war on terror and voted with the Bush administration on the war and supported the troops, remember how enraged you where at him and how you vowed his defeat in his reelection primary, well that is how conservative Republicans in Pennsylvania felt about Specter voting for the stimulus package, it was a betrayle, only difference between the two was one was a principaled stand that would make the world safer and the other was Washington business as ususal, however I digress.

So Specter flipped and became a Democrat, now he will run for reelection as a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. He will ask Democrats who have been voting against him for 29 years ( although he has gotten a decent plurality of the Democratic vote in his last few campaigns) to now allow him to be their standard bearer, I think he will win the Primary easily. Now if he faces his former primary opponent he will win easily and go on to be another rubber stamp for the Obama Administration in the U.S.Senate. There must be a check to the power of the Democratic party, as of right now there is not. The White house is Democratic, the House is Democratic by a large majority and now the Senate is Filibuster proof and the media well it is a lap dog to this White house so in order to maintain some checks we must maintain at least 41 Republican Senators. To do that Pennsylvania must be competative I believe that the only candidate that the GOP could run with any chance of winning is former Governor Tom Ridge, he is moderate on social issues, conservative on Fiscal issues, a proven leader as a governor, and an able administrator as a cabinet secretary, he also has won three times state wide in that state is well respected and is only slighly hated by Democrats and can appeal to cross over voters, he also has been out of politics since 2005 which means that it is likely some logic has found its way back into his mind. So If I where advising the Pennsylvania GOP I would tell them to go to Tom Ridge with hat in hand and 20 million dollars and beg him to run for the Senate it is the only hope to maintain some sort of fire wall against the coming storm of Obama style Big Government. We shall see how things unfold in 2010, hopefully I can use the phrase Senator Ridge one day.

April 15, 2009

Today all around this great country of ours tens of thousands of Americans gathered to protest this governments massive deficit spending. Many of those involved where people of a conservative political bent, however it was not exclusive there where many liberals and democrats in the protest as well. One of the symbols of this movement was a tea bag, to symbolize the Boston tea party when American's protested the unfair taxes by Great Britian by throwing crates of tea bags into the Boston harbor. Now these protests where peaceful and for the most part respectable, many politicans showed up and countless real Americans took time out of there jobs to attend and even bring their children. These where not protests that blocked traffic, or harassed the families of fallen service men and women, or that threw rocks at police, they where simply Americans exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and to peaceably assemble and redress their Government of their greivences, and yet to listen to much of the mainstream media these protests where made up of nothing more then a bunch of feeble minded bigots who hate children and orphans, and are all simply grassroots Republicans, the media made fun of these protests while covering them sparingly, now allow me to remind you that this is the same group of people who sent camera crews out to cover nearly every anti-war protest, it was so bad that it seem anytime six members of code pink met within five hundred miles of each other MSNBC would dispatch a news truck to show the "Ground Swell" of support against the war. Yet when Americans meet on tax day to say to their government ENOUGH! STOP MORGAGING OUR CHILDRENS FUTURES that some how was insignificant.
While these Tea Party Protest did not have the numbers of the anti-war protest they where significant, for the fact that most of the people who where there where actually employed, not simply retired hippies and college students, these people had to take time off of actual jobs to attend these protest. Something to mull over for the MSM when they start to look down on Americans actually wanting a say in the running of there government.

Obama's week over sea's

This week the President was over sea's in Central America at a summit. There he shook hands with Hugo Chavez, listened to Ortega give a fifty minute diatribe on the evils of America, and apologized for the greatness of America. Earlier last week he spoke about our need to open relations with Cuba, yes the same Cuba that has been ruled and is still ruled by a Castro brother, the same Castro brothers that have imprisoned dissidents, killed political opponents, tortured people, restricted travel and personal freedoms and supported leftist movements throughout central and South America.

So I was just wondering how this will affect our foreign policy? What sort of message does this send to our enemies and to those who fundamentally are opposed to the Capitalist way of life. I wonder what the leftists in South and Central America will think of America? We shall see I suppose.

The Whole AIG mess

Like most Americans I have been disgusted with the whole AIG thing. However I have a different take on the whole thing. I was opposed to the initial bailout of AIG, and am opposed to any future bailouts of that or any other company as I believe in allowing the free market to work ( if this blog stops abruptly it is because the Feds came in here and arrested me for practicing capitalism). What I have found hiliarious in this current mess is the fact that we bailed out a company, that was absolutely failing in the free market because of the business decisions that they made over the course of the last five years, normally we would have let a business fail but since we now live in a society that believes in equality of success rather then just opportunity we bailed this failing company out, but left all of the people who ran the company into the ground in charge, we left all of the contracts in place ( such as the payment agreements) and yet when the people that got AIG into this mess in the first place, where given a bailout and told to keep doing business as usual they believed the government that told them that and did so. Now we are amazed that AIG is still losing money and is paying executives bonuses to spite failure but thats what these guys have done all along and they got rewarded for it. ,

Now I don't buy into the hype, these CEO's did nothing legally wrong ( morally I wonder how they sleep at night but legally they did nothing wrong) as TARP had no provisions for how they ran there companies, the middle and upper management that got the bonuses that they were due contractually did nothing wrong, yet congress in its impotents wants to investigate, smear, and in some cases put at risk these people who where only rewarded by this same congress for their failure.

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MASS) one of the arcitects of the sub-prime crisis, has been spouting off about wanting the CEO ( the new Government appointed Ceo, it should scare every American that the governement is appointing CEO, I expect to start hearing terms like "Comrade" and "For the good of the state" to be thrown around at these congressional hearings.) to name the names of all of the people who got bonuses, bonuses that AIG was LEGALLY under CONTRACT to pay. This includes the middle and lower management as well. Now the CEO rightfully asked not to release the names as he fears for their safety, again these people have done nothing wrong legally, especially the middle and lower management many who worked hard to try to pull AIG out of these mess. He rightfully so believes that should their names be released to the public and a shill like Congressmen Franks and the political hacks in congress. It is very possible that wingnuts like people from the daily Kos, Moveon ,org or the Code Pink nut jobs might actually try to hurt these people and as pissed as I am about this stuff I don't want to see anyone get hurt.

I do have a solution to this mess. We tell the CEO and management of AIG "good game" that they threw one buy us and to savor the flavor and let them know that they are on there own financially. If they fail they fail if they manage to survive then they own the people of the U.S. ever cent back that we gave them. We must stop bailing companies out, rewarding them for failure only leads to more failure. STOP ALREADY!

Michael Steele the man, the myth, the legend.

(I recently recieved a request for an article on this subject and as I am thrilled to have at least a few readers I figured I would give them( and by them I mean all three of them) what they asked for.)

I was an early supporter of the candidacy of former Maryland Leutenant Governor Michael Steele's bid to be the new chairman of the RNC. He was a competent public servent, a strong spokesman for conservative idea's and principals, and made a surprisingly strong showing in a solidly blue state in a very bad year for the GOP when he ran for the U.S.Senate in 2006. I believe he could possibly even be a future President of the United States should he so desire that position.

He promised to revitalize the GOP, and bring the party back to political dominace once more. With that he has recently engaged in a series of statements saying his idea's where off the hook and that the GOP needed to have more of a hip hop setting. He was of course talking about the technology gap, the youth gap, and the money gap that the GOP currently has.

Chairman Steele also understands that the GOP must do better with African-American voters and Hispanic voters and he is absolutely right. We cannot ignore these voters and then be amazed when the Democrats ( who except for lip service ignore them as well.) continue to win overwhelming majorities in these communities.

However I think the Chairmans idea's and plans are good and hopefully will work I think his phrasing comes off as corney and unnatural. Michael Steele using the phrase "off the hook" sounds about as natural as Hugh Hefner using the term "monogamy".

I think that the Chairman thinks that he has to use such language to appeal to other constituencies, and while there is nothing wrong with the language, I am a believer that in politics people can spot a fake and those phrases just don't seem natural to Mr. Steele.

If he wants to appeal to the African- American community he must do what the GOP has needed to do for the last forty year, that is simply engage in the conversation in African American and Hispanic communities, stop being afraid of being called a racist or in Chairman Steele's case an Uncle Tom and engage in the arena of idea's, we are right on so many issues important to African American and hispanic familys, but for the last forty years the democrats have been the only ones doing the talking. We must engage, be willing to be rejected, be willing to have certain people assume that you are only there for votes and engage, and if we lose keep engaging in the discussions, let people know that the GOP actually cares about these communities and there future and the futures of their children.

On issue after issue to hispanics and African- American's we are right in our positions but we fail to engage. We allowed ourselves to be robbed by the Democratic party of our genuine role in the passage of the civil rights movement we, like idiots stood behind in certain states candidates like David Duke, and Strom Thurmond because we wanted to win and it destroyed any arguement and credibility that we may have had in the African American community. We stayed silent when the Democrats in the Senate elected a former member of the Klu Klux Klan as their Majority leader for Twelve years ( Robert Byrd (D) West Virginia). We failed to point out that on issues like school of choice, abortion, lower taxes, less spending, and a litany of other issues African American's agree with the GOP but we don't talk about that and we deserved to not recieve their votes.

Now having an African American as Chairman is a good start but its only the beginining and we should point out he is and was the best man for the job thats why he got it. I think that Mr. Steele will make a fine chairman and that we will close the technology gap and the money gap and maybe just maybe the GOP will finally start really fighting for every vote not just the white, middle aged, middle income, and upper income votes.

So while I think his language is corney at times I think Mr. Steele will be great.

Future Line up for 2012

Well initially after the election I said that I would wait before I started to discuss candidates for President in 2012, however with the rate at which President Obama is working to redistribute wealth and destroy the economy it is important that we as conservatives start to get some sort of idea about what sort of candidate we want to carry the conservative ( notice I didn't say Republican ) mantle in 2012.



First it is important that we have a clear set of position on the issues of the day. Positions that come from principal not political expediency. First we must have a candidate that will say NO to anymore bailouts, second we much have a candidate that is truly committed to fiscal responsibility, ( This one is gonna be hard, as we have proof of supposed conservative candidates getting elected President and spending like drunken sailors aka George W. Bush) third we much commit to eliminating all earmarks in the federal budget, after all if its worth spending federal money on its worth being debated, fourth we much have a candidate that will commit to a balanced federal budget by the end of their first term, fifth and possibly the most important we must have a candidate the recongnizes that there is evil in this world and is willing to confront it and that being the case will commit to fight and win the war on terror.



Now we have many possible candidates, the press will single out two to four that they will call the front runner and give all of the attention too. However there will be many and it is likely that the candidate that actually has the best platform will be a "second tier " candidate. Lets hope if thats the case that he/she will be able to pull a Huckabee and break out into the top tier.



Here is a list of some of the top tier candidates;

Mitt Romney- The former Governor of Massachusettes, who gained frame for turning around the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. He was also known for giving Senator Ted Kennedy the closest election in his life in 1994. He is also a successful businessman with an estimated net worth of anywhere from 200-500 million dollars. One of his negatives is that he is untrusted by some conservatives as a "johnny come lately" to conservatism. There are also some within the evengelical community that don't trust him because of his mormon faith.

Mike Huckabee- The former Governor of Arkansas, and former baptist preacher was an underdog candidate in 2008, he finished first in Iowa and was the final rival of Senator McCain for the nomination. He has been a propentat of the flat/fair tax, and has spoken out about the need for arts funding and education in public schools. He was a favorate of evangelical christians within the party, he is mistrusted by some because as Governor he supported a tax increase for infrastructure projects which he later repealed after the roads were built. His fundraising ability has been called into question.
Newt Gingrinch- Former Speaker of the House from Georgia, and former college history professor Newt is seen by many as the intellectual leader of the party, the "ideal" man. He is respected by conservative and liberals alike for his intellegence. He is a hero to conservative Republicans for his leadership in the house from '94-98 and his passage of some of the tenants of the contract with America. His negatives are many, he is highly disliked by liberals and some moderates, his personal life and history has been less then stellar, a nasty divorce from his first wife, and an affair with an aide during the Clinton impeachment. He is also seen as to quote a friend of mine "an asshat". However his presence in the race would raise the intellectual discussion and debate within the party greatly and benefit the eventual nominee.
Ron Paul- The Texas congressman who's '08 campaign excited millions of young people, fiscal conservatives, and anti-war activists alike. He raised considerable amounts of money on the internet and while he had limited elector success he more then any other candidate on the Republican side attracted an almost cult like following. Congressman Paul has a record as a reliable fiscal and social conservative, he believes in a strong dollar, raining in the power of the FED to regulate money supply, supports ending the wars in Iraq and afghanistan, and has taken a libertarian stance on several issues, he votes consistently against wasteful pork spending and funding and bills that he believes violates the constitution. He is seen as unelectable by many within the party, he is not a dynamic speaker, and his abrasive style is seen as off putting to many people.
Mark Sanford- The popular Governor of South Carolina, he has been in the news lately for critizing the Presidents stimulus package. Before being elected Governor he served in the House of Representatives where he was known as a fiscal and social conservative. As Governor he has shown great success and even butted heads with the Republican controlled legislature over pork barrell spending. He is seen as a true believer in conservative government principals. Some down falls are the fact that he is not well known in the country, he is southern and some in the party want to avoid being marginalized and seen as a regional party.
Sarah Palin-The governor of Alaska and the 2008 Vice Presidential candidate, she was critical in energizing the Republican base to come out for Senator John McCain, she gave a great acceptance speech which for a few weeks after the convention gave the McCain /Palin ticket its only extended lead in the polls. She is seen as a young viberant leader, a solid social and fiscal conservative with a down home folksey charm. During the '08 campaign she took an absolute drumming by the media, she was seen as inexperienced and in some cases lacking intellect to be Vice President. Some even claimed that she hurt the McCain campaign. Others point to the massive crowds she drew at rallys and her stella fundraising ability as well as her ability to connect with certain voters as a reason to watch her.
Tim Pawlenty- Governor of Minnesota he has been successful as a conservative in a Democratic state, he is seen as pivotal in helping the GOP to broaden their appeal in the great lakes states and the midwest. The governor is seen also as not overly partisan working well with Democrats and Republicans alike. Some problems he may face is the face that he is not well known out side of political circles, his fundraising efforts may be less then stellar. However his voice is a valuable addition to the party.

There will likely be other candidates that seek the nomination, one may even win it. However the list above are the most likely candidates. The first tier candidates as it where. Here is a list of possible or second tier candidates.

Jon Huntsman- Governor of Utah, he was reelected with one of the largest margins in the 2008 election cycle over 77% of the vote. Huntsman is seen as a solid conservative and an effective Governor. However he recently came out for civil unions for gay and lesbian Americans, he also recently stated that the GOP must promote more environmentally friendly policies. This may hurt him in places like New Hampshire and South Carolina where the GOP voters are more conservative.
Mike Pence-Congressman from Indiana, he is a member of the house leadership as chairman of the house Republican conference. He is a staunch conservative, a favorate of fiscal and social conservatives. He is seen by many as a possible future Speaker of the House should he decided to stay in that body. His draw backs are simply that he not well outside of washington or Indiana.

Piling on Jindal

Well after President Obama gave his quasi-state of the union address, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal of Lousiana gave the Republican responses to his address. The governor's speech was lampooned by many pundits and talking heads, there were claims that it was written better then it was delievered, that the Governor might not be ready for prime time. Pundits many of whom had just moments earlier gushed about the Presidents speech tore the Governor apart.
Well within twenty four hours the echo chamber that is the main stream media had decided that Governor Jindal's address was a failure. Some even speculated that it may have jeaprodised his future in elective office.

Now I listened to the Governor's speech and it was not a great speech but it was good, he made several valid points about the Presidents over spending and a need for fiscal restraint. He did at times come off looking awkward, most likely a result of nerves.

Now do I think that his speech was an end of Governor Jindal's aspirations for higher office? Absolutely not, recall Bill Clintons horrific speech at the 1988 Democratic Convention which was panned by pundits and "career ending" four years later he was the democratic nominee and ultimately a successful two term President.

I think that Bobby Jindal has a bright future, should he decide to run for President in 2012 he will be a formitable candidate and will have as much of a chance at the nomination as anyone else. While I don't think that he has as much charisma as President Obama when you compare there records of success the Governor wins hands down. So I look forward to watching Governor Jindal who at 37 has a bright future in American Politics.

AIG again

Well we have made it offical. We are a nation that rewards failure. Last week the insurance giant which several months ago recieved billions of dollars in federal money because as the government said AIG was "too big to fail" now as was expected, AIG reported the largest lost in U.S. history for any American firm, almost 60 billion dollars. So for that feet of economic failure AIG which has tanked because they got into the home speculation business will now come to the government with their hat in their hands again and ask for more government money, this President who has made it policy to bailout failing companies will give them their money, America will move closer to socialism and AIG will go furthur down the road to insolvencey.

I fear for the future of our country.

So it's done

Well the congress just passed the for lack of a better word stimulus bill, I was surprised that they bothered to pass a bill to stimulate the economy that has no chance of doing what it was intended to do. I have decided that any one who voted for it in congress should be removed from office for incompetence. What will fix the economy is simple, cut taxes, capital gains, and income taxes, pass a balanced budget amendment with a clause that says that government cannot raise discressionary spending one dime until our national debt is paid off.

Implement sound monetary policy, recent the banking regulations that force banks to give morgages to people who can't afford them. Make it public policy that any business that gets into trouble will be allowed to fail no matter what. Encourage savings through tax incentives to do so. Start a phased in comsumption tax to replace the income tax, begin to slowly roll back entitlements from the federal government, pass trade policy that is fair, get government out of the private sector, regulate with logic and reason and a steady, soft hand. Impeach Representatives Barney Frank, Senator Chris Dodd, and anyone else who forced banks to give loans according to political correctness rather then actual ability to repay.

Finally put America on the precious metal standard a combination of Gold, Silver, and Platenum to back up our currency, remove excess money from circulation and make it abundantly clear that in America no one is owed a living by the government so long as they are of able mind and body. That is what I will devote whatever political life I have left to promote. Hopefully we can get back the America that we all learned out in school the one where nothing is impossible if your willing to WORK for it, and not have it handed to you by the government.

Bailouts all around

I remember hearing about the "theory" of capitalism. Of idea's like a free market, and survival of the fittest. I can recall that at one time in this country that was a good thing. That businesses rose and fell according to there ability to change and adapt to an ever changing market. If you were smart and savvy and did good business you thrived and became wealthy and if you did bad business, perhaps made bad investments, or bad oh say labor deals, and your output exceeded your income then you failed.
Yes it was hard, yes people lost fortunes and for a short time some people lost jobs. But sure enough most if not all of those people found other jobs in fields and businesses that we thriving, maybe they had to move to do it, or retrain or perhaps not expect a captains wage for a waiters job but they managed to make it.
When the economy went through economic hard times people weathered the storm through thrift, and charity of churches and their neighbors, the economy corrected itself, much like an over grown forrest the dead underbrush was removed to allow the healthy folage to thrive. Well that my friends is a thing of the past.

Now we must always have an ever growning economy, when it does start to slow the government and too many American's who throught there voting patterns over the last twent- five years have convinced themselves that they are entitled and that the government is responsible for them go looking for the government to step in and stop the natural process of the free market.

Why do they do this you might ask? Well because facing the consequences of ones actions is too hard, it calls for the slightest bit of sacrafice and displeasure and it is so much easier to lay ones head on the shoulder of the government and let them solve all of our problems.

Well when we do this government is more then willing to step in and take over in there hyper effiecient way,( thats sarcasm for any of you from Rio Linda) and in doing so the goverment gets even more involved in our lives, takes away more freedom and personal choice and robs us and our children of precious posession and that posession is personal responsibity.

These economic troubles that we are currenlty facing where caused by many things over many many years and will not be solved over night. We can as it appears we are on the road to do, drastically over react and plunge America into what will likely be at least a decade of quasi-socialism, and even further into a state of entitlement that is already held by far to many Americans.

Or we can take a much different course, we can calm down, take a deep breath and let the market work. First thing we do as individuals is go about our lives. If you were planning to buy a house or car continue to do so but do so responsibly, if you were going to invest in the market do so, but do so responsibly. Stop failing about as if the world were ending and stop looking to Government to solve all your problems. Cause my fellow citizens we must face a cold hard truth some of this is our fault. Don't worry I'll explain.

We have not demanded that our government have any sort of sound fiscal policy( that means money supply for you in Rio Linda) there by allowing our currency to continue to drop in value as the federal reserve prints more and more paper money in some febile attempt to keep inflation in check.

We have not be responsible consumers and barrowers, this is for all of you who have purchased a home in the last five years that you knew you could not afford but just "had" to have. All the fry cooks at denny's that allowed themselves to be victims of predator lenders. Yes the lenders bear much of the blame and should be help accountable but too many people allowed themselves to be victimized by abandoned personal responsiblity ( i am sure liberals are cringing when i use that phrase) and actually saying "NO" to home loans were down right foolish. By not asking questions, by expecting to get into a home with no money down and surprisingly low payments (at first), for not reading all of the print, for not challenging their loan officer when he or she presented them with these subprime loans, and for now expecting those that did make smart choices to bail them out. If you are a member of a labor union and have not at least mentioned that your union has a responsibility to not bankrupt the company you are to blame, we are all to blame for not saving more or for most of us any money, for thinking words like budget, economy, and "No honey that second SUV isn't a neccesity" were bad or foreign words.
We are too blame for having to keep up with the jones, its not the advertising companys that MADE us by their products we choose to do that they just did their jobs and came up with cleaver marketing campaigns.
We elected and reelected politicians who made and are still making policies that boarder on the criminal.

So how do we stop it? Well it wont be easy, it will be hard and at times even uncomfortable. First we stop bailing companys out. We let them fail, wait.....because if they had done smart business they wouldn't have failed. We then refused to reelect any member of congress who was for the bailouts no matter party or ideology and bring in a new batch. We then act like adults when it comes to our personal finances, we don't buy things we don't need with money we don't have. If we get a morgage we actually read what were signing and knowwhat the terms are. We budget our money. We say no to more government involvement even when it might benefit us personalty because it would not be in the best interest of the nation. If we fail we try again and don't expect anything form those who did succeed other then a fair chance of our own.

No MORE BAILOUTS WE ARE GOING TO LOSE OUR NATION IF WE KEEP THIS UP! We will either collapse under the strain of huge debt or we will sucumb to the evil of socialism which robs free men of there drive, there liberty, and their childrens liberty. It's grown up time people, time to make the hard decisions. I am ready for the fight are you? Cause this nation that I have fought for and seen men die for is worth the fight. But apathy, fear of standing on our own two feet, and being unwilling to stand up and say "THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER! NOT ONE STEP MORE!NOT ONE DIME MORE! NO MORE "FOR MY OWN GOOD" NO MORE!" will kill this great nation, a nation that so far has been the love of my life.
I hope that this post makes sense feel free to let me know what you think.