NY-23:My Email to the NRCC

To: Mike Bober, Director of Coalitions, National Republican Campaign Committee

Dear Mike,

We spoke a few weeks ago when you were kind enough to take my call objecting to the Repubican establishment support of Dede Scozzafavva in NY-23.

As almost every sentient being now knows, Ms. Scozzofavva (who I will refer to henceforth as Dede) is a liberal Republican running in a special election to replace John McHugh, who was chosen to serve as Secretary of the Army. She faces a Democrat challenger and a conservative independent challenger named Doug Hoffman, who has been endorsed by a number of national Republican leaders who have broken with the party establishment.

Many conservatives--myself included--have broken with the party as well by supporting Doug Hoffman.

You gave me a sincere and impassioned defense of the NRCC's position re: the race, one that I have seen articulated by Newt Gingrich and other establishment figures who have endorsed Dede. That is to say, failure to support the GOP nominee would set a bad precedent in 2010 races where a third party nominee might feel emboldened to challenge the party's candidate. I have also heard Newt say that it is dangerous to second-guess the local party leaders who presumably vetted all the possible candidates before selecting the nominee.

Undoubtedly the NRCC, the RNC and other party organizations who back Dede are well intentioned, sincere, and perhaps even "correct" from the point of view of the party.
Loyalty to party and to its institutions is admirable, under normal circumstances.

But I would argue that these are not normal circumstances or normal times. I believe the party establishment is missing the larger context in which it is operating,

Many Americans, most Republicans and virtually all conservatives intuit that we are in the midst of the greatest and boldest assault on the free markets, the U.S. Constitution
and American institutions in our country's history. Americans are stunned at the speed with which the President and the Democrats in Congress have introduced massive government control into our private enterprise system. Perhaps even more shocking is the public expression of contempt by Democrat leaders (and sadly by some Republicans) for the very people they govern, merely for exercising their Constitutionally protected right to assemble and speak freely. That the bootlicking media is a full partner in all of this is not quite as surprising but disheartening nonetheless.

To be sure, many of us believe that Barack Obama and the Democrats are the ones holding the Statist gun to the head of the American people, so to speak. But we also recognize that the Republicans in Congress and in the previous administration handed them the weapon and loaded the chamber. As a result Americans are increasingly frustrated by the business-as-usual nature of party politics.

We are in a fight for the very heart and soul of our country, and we want political leadership who will either stand in front and show us the way, or stand aside and get out of the way. Mike Pence, Tom Price, Michelle Bachman, Senator Tom Coburn and and Senator Jim DeMint come to mind as examples of the kind of men and women who are standing in front. But they represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds of elected Republican officials in Washington. Most are standing aside, and unfortunately they are too numerous to mention by name.

Whatever Dede's attributes are, it is clear that she doesn't measure up to the kind of political leader conservatives will support. She is beholden to the very special interests (labor unions, for one) that are aligned with the Statist agenda of the majority party. The fact that she says she would oppose this or that legislation, or for that matter vote for John Boehner as Speaker, rings hollow in the face of her record as a New York State legislator or her political alliances. The last time Americans ignored the record and associations of a politican we elected Barack Obama as president.

Successful political parties, like successful governing parties, do not last long if they defy the will of their constituents. Harry Reid will learn that lesson when he finally has to face the voters of Nevada. I am afraid that many Republicans will learn that lesson the hard way, too, if they continue to ignore the sentiments and sensibilitites of its activists.

The furor surrounding NY--23 does not represent an abandonment by "the folks"of the Republican Party or the first rumblings of a nascent third party in American politics. Rather it constitutes a cry in the wilderness, a plea to the GOP's leaders to abandon business as usual and to engage in the hard work of rebuilding the party into an institution that we can be proud of again, a party in tune with the views of it activist base and the values of the vast majority of Americans.

I hope Hoffman wins NY-23, not to poke the party in the eye but to send a message for 2010 and beyond. But even of he loses, the message is the same: Recruit and support candidates who hold fast to the values of free speech, free enterprise, energy independence, national security, rational budgets, low taxes and national sovereignty. Candidates who will fight to turn back the Statist assault with every fiber of their being.

If you will do this I promise you that we will once again be proud and happy to call ourselves Republicans. If you do not, I believe we will all reap the whirlwind.

When Tyranny Calls

Joseph Ashby writing at American Thinker:

In explanation for her "yes" vote on the Max Baucus created health care bill, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe said:

"Is this bill all that I would want? Far from it. Is it all that it can be? No. But when history calls, history calls."

Senator Snowe is probably right. History is calling. What she has wrong is history's message. History is calling with the warning that tyranny is at our doorstep.

Click here to read the entire post.

Irishman Critiques Anti-Israel Bias at The Guardian

Here is an Irish intellectual's full-throated, articulate and much-needed call for balance, fairness and accuracy in the The Guardian (U.K.) newspaper's Middle East reporting.

Conservatives Take on the GOP Establishment

A new poll out yesterday shows that 73% of Republicans think the GOP establishment and leaders are clueless. I'll bet you, like me, are one of the 73%.

The backing and support of the liberal pro-choice, pro-union, ACORN-endorsed candidate Dede Scozzafava by the Republican establishment (RNC, NRCC, Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congressional leadership) in New York's 23d CD's special election has underlined the problem: While "the folks" are looking for leaders who share their values, the political class is still playing the same old game of party politics.

Now the Scozzafava situation is unusual in that she was chosen to stand in the special election as the GOP nominee by local party leaders in some back room. Most candidates standing for the general election in congressional races upcoming in 2010 will be chosen by primary voters, not by political hacks. Still, it is disturbing to see the national and state Republican elites line up to endorse Scozzafava merely because she wears the party label, even though her views are anathema to the activists the party must attract.

Even Newt Gingrich has said that he supports the liberal Scozzafava not because of her positions but because to support the "other guy" (Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who has been endorsed by Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum) would be to send the "wrong signal." Wrong signal to whom? To other conservatives who might be tempted to oppose a GOP candidate in the 2010 congressional elections.

Well, that is disingenuous in the extreme, for as I said above most GOP congressional candidates will be chosen by the primary voters, not by the party officials. In such a situation a potential third party conservative candidate would be the potential spoiler to the detriment of the nominee chosen by the people. That is likely to dissuade him or her from challenging the party nominee, regardless of the outcome of NY-23.

I have spoken to staffers at the RNC and the NRCC who admit that their phones have been ringing off the hook. Ordinary Republicans are calling not with angry threats but with a firm warning to the establishment: we are fighting for the future of our country and we will only vote for candidates who will fight along with us. The only question is whether the Republican elites will heed that warning.

If they don't they will be taught a lesson in grassroots politics that they may not recover from.

Looking for a PAC that shares your values? Check out the Senate Conservatives Fund, chaired by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. The SCF is a political action committee dedicated to electing true conservatives to the United States Senate. Sign up for the:

The Climate Treaty Gambit in Copenhagen

"Rule #8: Keep the Pressure On with different tactics and actions..."

"Rule #10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition."

-- Rules for Radicals, by Saul Alinsky (1971).


Keep these rules in mind when you watch this 4-minute video of Lord Christopher Monckton, as he warns Americans about the coming climate treaty disaster in Copenhagen this December.

In December, President Obama will travel to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. It would be ironic indeed if in genuflection to the Nobel elites he flew from there over to Copenhagen to sign a global climate treaty which will cede control of American industrial policy to socialist bureaucrats in Europe and the U.N.

Alinsky's Rules are reminders of the relentness of the Left. If they can't get their industry- and job-killing energy taxes through legislation they will do it through executive fiat. And if they can't get it done that way they'll get 'er done under the rubric of "international cooperation" and global good citizenship.

They've thought all this stuff though, folks. They have the distinct advantage of knowing what their plans are, step by determined step. The rest of us are just playing catchup.

Regarding Rush: "Defending the Invincible"

(As Rush would say, "Right on, right on, right on!")

Posted at Hotair.com 2:15 pm on October 18, 2009 by Doctor Zero

Almost every column written in defense of Rush Limbaugh over the last few days, following the vicious campaign to slander him as a racist, has included a statement along the lines of “Rush is rich, powerful, intelligent, and articulate, so he can take care of himself, and he’ll be just fine.” I don’t mean to disparage the authors of these sentiments, but I must disagree. I know the most popular conservative broadcaster in America doesn’t need some anonymous guest-author on a blog to defend him, but I’m going to do it anyway, without the slightest reservation due to his wealth and power.

Much strife and misery has been visited on this country by the idea that the rights and prerogatives of the rich and successful are diminished by their fortunes… that we should feel no remorse about seizing their property, or insulting their honor, because they’ll still be comfortably rich at the end of the day. We have become much too relaxed about laughing off vile slander, because the target can nurse his wounded soul from the plush accommodations of a West Palm Beach mansion. Honor is as valuable to the millionaire as to the pauper.

I’ll probably never be part of a consortium that purchases a football team, but I understand what it means to watch a dream bleed to death. My hopes and ambitions may be smaller than Rush Limbaugh’s, but they have exactly the same value to me. Whether those dreams are carved from pixels, paper, or platinum, they are equally priceless. It requires only a drop of the moral imagination utterly lacking in the people who slandered Limbaugh to guess what it feels like, when a man whose life revolves around words and ideas sees his dreams boiled away by words he didn’t speak, and ideas he has never held.

The events of the past week were about more than simply thwarting Limbaugh’s desire to buy into a football team. There was the naked greed of parasites like Al Sharpton, desperate to maintain his relevance in a world that has wisely stripped him of the power to destroy a man’s life with a phony rape allegation, or launch murderous riots. There was the blind personal hatred of Limbaugh, by people who long ago tired of watching him rewrite their plans for the part of America that refuses to submit to them. And, of course, this was the latest offensive in a bitter war against the ideas that Limbaugh has long served, as their most cheerful and effective defender. Limbaugh’s enemies in that war are angry because they’re frightened. They’re frightened because all of their estimates and projections said they should have been able to claim victory by now.

Backed up against the wall, and forced to admit the most damaging quotes used against Limbaugh were forgeries, his accusers are left stammering that he’s simply too “divisive” to be involved with ownership of an NFL team. What a bleak example of the totalitarian mindset! If you disagree with the approved ideas distributed by the collective, you’re “divisive” and unfit for membership in polite society. I suppose Limbaugh is saturated with divisiveness particles, whose half-life will extend for decades, but the warning to others is clear: rid yourselves of those “divisive” ideas and get with the program.

Perhaps the President could direct one of his many czars to prepare a list of certified “divisive” positions, and which aspects of society are closed to offenders. It would save people like David Checketts, the investor seeking to purchase the Rams, the time he wasted inviting Limbaugh to join his consortium. Imagine how much more convenient it would have been for Checketts, if he could have pulled up a handy whitehouse.gov web page and learned Rush was too divisive to be minority owner of a football team! The Homeland Security spectrum of terrorist alert levels could be used to measure divisiveness ratings. I’d be willing to give them an email address, so the system could send me a warning message when I approach Level Orange. What do you suppose the divisiveness rating for someone like Jeremiah Wright would be? He built a tidy personal fortune from his Ministry of Hate – would he be allowed to buy a stake in an NFL team?

Only the most gullible dupes, and people who rely on CNN for “news”, seriously think Rush Limbaugh is a racist. The dishonesty and cynicism behind dimwitted assertions that he wanted to buy an NFL team to role-play the life of a plantation owner is breathtaking. His accusers don’t really think he harbors some elusive racist demon, which he suppresses just long enough to become friends with Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and Tony Dungy. The people who read this crap should be at least as angry over the insult to their intelligence as Limbaugh is about the insult to his honor. This kind of weapons-grade stupidity is one of the things America can no longer afford.

Limbaugh’s accusers want him burned at the stake for the crime of effective conservatism, not the racism they were so eager to lie about last week. The American public should think long and hard about which side of this ideological struggle should be on trial. Rush Limbaugh’s ideas did not produce a titanic deficit, double-digit unemployment, and global adversaries who can barely stop laughing at our President long enough to pretend they respect him. His ideas did not put disciples of Saul Alinsky, Chairman Mao, and Alex Jones in positions of power. His words are not deployed to conceal hundreds of billions in stolen “stimulus” money, thousand-page Mad Lib bills riddled with blank paragraphs, and massive offenses against individual liberty. His EIB Network endorses $1500 Sleep Number beds, not “saved or created” jobs costing half a million bucks apiece. Unlike the “Hope and Change” Administration, he doesn’t spend his three hours on the radio each weekday listing all the things you will no longer be allowed to do. He is the champion of ideas so powerful that his enemies fear the merest taste of them.

Rush Limbaugh has raised his voice in defense of freedom countless times over the years. I’m happy to exercise my freedom to raise my voice in defense of him. I invite you to do the same. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t “need” it. He deserves it. All of us do. There is little we can do to reverse the injustice of the St. Louis Rams affair, but we can make it up to Rush by giving him the chance to deliver a hell of a show on the day after Election Day, next year. If CNN is foolish enough to continue employing cretins like Rick Sanchez by then, all of them should be turning in a very enjoyable performance on that day, as well.

Anita Dunn-"She Came Not to Bury Mao but to Praise Him"

By Pete Wehner, from Commentary Magazine's Blog, Contentions

Pete Wehner is former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

I have written before why I think Glenn Beck is harmful to the conservative movement. But this video that he played on his program of Anita Dunn, communications director for the White House, explaining earlier this year why Mao Zedong is one of her two favorite political philosophers, is a public service. The praise for Mao isn’t a throwaway line by Miss Dunn; she actually explains why he is one of the two people (along with Mother Teresa!) she turns to most when it comes to “fighting your own war.” Everybody has his or her own path, you see; you don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things. It’s about your choices and your path. You figure out what’s right for you. Mao did it his way, and you should do it your way. So sayeth Anita Dunn, philosopher.

In his October 2005 essay in COMMENTARY, Arthur Waldron describes the architect of China’s Cultural Revolution this way: “Mao was the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century. Much of the killing was direct, as in the torture and purges at Yan’an. After the Communist seizure of power in 1949, the practice became countrywide. Mao set his numerical targets openly, and stressed the ‘revolutionary’ importance of killing.” It is said of Mao — who was responsible for the death of some 70 million Chinese — that he derived a “sadistic pleasure” from seeing people put to death in horrible ways.

All this goes uncommented upon by Miss Dunn. Her praise for Mao — unqualified and without caveats, based on the excerpts of her speech — is quite extraordinary. For a senior member of the White House to hold these views is more extraordinary still. Perhaps Pol Pot will be the subject of Dunn’s next favorable meditation.

You might assume that the White House press corps would think this is a matter worth exploring — but you would (so far) be wrong. I won’t speculate as to why that’s the case; I will only say that its lack of curiosity and interest on this matter is, well, worth noting.

Scott's Note: I don't understand Wehner's assertion that Glenn Beck is "harmful to the conservative movement." He may be harmful to the entrenched Republican establishment, and hopefully is very harmful to the entrenched Democratic one, but harmful to conservatism? I don't see it.

Beck is doing the work of a hundred journalists, even though he is not one. He is hated and now feared by the Left, for good reason. He is also resented by the Progressive wing of the GOP (think: columnist David Brooks, Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain) and even some true conservatives, like blogger Ed Morrissey and, I guess, Wehner.

Perhaps they are uncomfortable, because while Beck is single-handedly exposing the corruption at the heart of the White House, he also heaps scorn on the Republican enablers of big government and the Progressive cause. Or maybe they are merely jealous of Beck's audience, influence and financial success.

Personally, I believe that all Americans owe Beck a debt of gratitude. If America is able to throw off the yoke of creeping socialism and government corruption, it will in no small measure be due to Beck's insistence on shining the spotlight of truth into the dark corners of this government.

"For What?" I'll Tell You For What.

"For what?" That was the headline in the Drudge Report this morning, which linked to an AP story asking the same question about the surprise award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. That story has since been scrubbed off the internet

After acknowledging that The Supreme Leader has done nothing but talk since the day he got elected, the story speculates that "the award could be as much about issuing a slap at Obama's predecessor, former President George W. Bush, as about lauding Obama. Bush was reviled by the world for his cowboy diplomacy, Iraq war and snubbing of European priorities like global warming."

Well, as dismaying and churlish as that sounds, it wouldn't be the first time the Nobel Committee awarded the coveted (by some) prize to an American antagonist of George Bush. In recent years the prize has gone to our worst white president, Jimmy Carter, Bush's most outspoken critic. It has also been awarded to Mohamed El Baradei and Al Gore, whose "bodies of work," if not expressly antagonistic to Bush, are certainly "anti-Bush" in every sense of the term.

It's just another example of the disgrace the Nobel Committee and the joke the Peace Prize has become (Yassir Arafat, Desmond Tutu, the U.N. Peacekeeping Rapists...I mean Forces...and Kofi Annan have won this, too). Then again, the Nobel Prize's founder, Alfred Nobel, was no slouch in the joke department, having founded the prize out of guilt for inventing dynamite and other explosive and deadly instruments of war (the best kind, I reckon). His intent was to award the prize to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses"

I guess he should have said "the person who talks the most about" fraternity between nations, because in that category Obama is the undisputed champ.

But this is about much more than dissing Bush and the American imperialists that the world apparently thinks are the greatest threat to mankind. It is a down payment on a reward that no doubt will come Obama's way when he actually succeeds in doing what the elites of Oslo have long hoped and prayed for. (Well, not prayed, exactly. Thats not exactly in the repertoire of the godless elites of Europe and the world.)

These fatuous arrogant bastards want nothing less than what Alfred Nobel wanted, a world where peace reigns and war is no more. In modern formulation, this means a powerless and nuke-less America that stands by and does nothing while dictators and thugs prance around the world stage lecturing the rest of us while at home their people are kept poor and wretched. Better yet, an America that helps to slit its own throat by trashing its currency, taxing its own citizens and industries in the name of "universal healthcare" and refusing to free itself of dependence on religious fanatics for energy.

But this doesn't describe what the international do-gooders and so-called lovers of Peace really want. Oh no. Just look at the list of prize recipients and you'll see a theme. Arafat. Carter. Annan. The U.N. Obama. What the elites of the world want more than anything else is a world without Israel. A world without Jews.

Barack Obama is the closest they have come to someone who could actualize that dream. In that sense the award was a canny and effective way of bringing the dream closer. By inflating Obama's already bloated sense of self-importance, the Prize will emboldened him to redouble his efforts to do all in his power to bring about the terrible vision of these world elites.

At first I thought awarding the Prize to Obama was a disgrace. Now I have concluded that it is
oddly appropriate.

CBO Caves on Health Care; GOP Senators Next?

It turns out that President Obama is right--a government takeover of healthcare is a great way to reduce the deficit!

This afternoon the Congressional Budget Office, the "non-partisan" budget office beholden to a Democrat-controlled Congress--released its estimate of the cost of the Senate Finance Commitee health care bill--the Baucus bill.

The CBO concludes that the Baucus proposal will--wait for it--save $81 billion over 10 years.

The CBO is careful to caveat that the "mark" it analyzed is not a bill at all, but a conceptual framework for a bill, and therefore is subject to "substantial uncertainty."

The bill--according to the CBO, mind you--will require most individuals and families to buy health insurance and penalize them if they don't; will tax purchasers of high-cost policies with an excise tax; and will subsidize individuals and families (not yours, of course) who buy insurance through government-sponsored "exchanges." "Exchanges" are not to be confused with a "public option." Of course not.

The bill, according to the budget office, will drastically increase Medicare eligibility but also "substantially reduce payment rates for most services." In plain English this can be translated as "You doctors and med students out there can suck eggs."

The CBO admits that the bill will "cost" over $800 billion in new outlays over the 10-year period. (And this is the so-called "centrist" bill designed to attract Republicans!). So how does this monstrosity actually save money? Says the CBO:

The costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium
insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net
cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the
combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save
$404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO
estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same
period.

Blah. blah. blah. This turkey has about as much chance of being deficit-neutral as Chicago has of getting the 2016 Olympics. But if it does happen to turn out that way, it will be as a result of massive taxes, penalties and mandates on individuals, families and small business.

What makes the CBO report so troubling is that it gives so-called Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine just the cover she needs to vote this thing on to the Senate floor. She has tried to come off as some sort of deficit hawk by claiming she would not vote for the Baucus bill if it increased the deficit. She has also vowed not to vote for a bill that contained a government-run health care option.

Voila! According to CBO, this bill fits the bill. Snowe will now likely vote for it, and give the Dems and Obama the "bi-partisan" legislation they crave. And to make things worse, according to the well-connected Erick Erickson of Redstate.com, other Senate Republicans are on the verge of folding on health care.

There is still a ways to go before a government takeover of health care becomes law. But this latest development brings the whole damnable thing one step closer.

Read the entire CBO letter to Senator Baucus here.

"How Israel Was Disarmed"

"Global View" columnist Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal has penned a chilling "what-if"
analysis of a U.N. Security Council meeting, circa January 2010.

In Stephens' formulation, the U.S., via an abstention, paves the way for passage of a U.N. resolution calling for Israel to give up its nukes and submit to international inspection of its nuclear facilities. Reflecting the hostile turn in U.S. policy towards Israel, a senior Pentagon official says, "The Israelis need to look at this U.N. vote as a shot across their bow...if they want to start a shooting war with Iran, we won't have their backs on the Security Council."

It has been said that good fiction has the ring of truth. Sadly, what would have been unimaginable a year ago rings all too true today.

Dem: Finance Committee Health Bill is Gibberish

I hate to interrupt your celebration of Chicago's upset win of the 2016 Olympic Games, but ...what's that?

Oh. That was Rio's upset win of the 2016 Olympic Games. Sorry, I just assumed Barack, Michelle and Oprah would bring it home to Chicago, you know, for the children. Oh, well...

Anyway, according to CNS News, Senate Finance Committee Democrat Tom Carper said that:

he does not “expect” to read the actual legislative language of the committee’s health care bill because it is “confusing” and that anyone who claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people.“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”

I guess he thinks we are all as dumb as he is because he, like all the Committee Democrats, voted against Senator Bunning's amendment to post the bill on line 72 hours in advance of a vote.

But you can be sure Carper's confusion and inability to understand what he's voting for won't actually prevent him from voting for the final legislation.

What a disgrace.