Saxby Chambliss and the Coral Sea Plus a Party of the Common Man Update

Last month we took a major hit. Our opposition and their wellplanned and organized attack caught us seemingly unawares. We knew something was coming, but we were not sure how badly it would hit us. The onslaught pushed us to the brink and nearly gave the Democrats complete control of the two elected branches of government, a situation designed to help them gain the third as well.

With the party in shambles, disorganized, and questioning itself, the momentum of the Democrats carried forward. Media figures swooned over the expanding circle of Obama. As President Bush continued to tend to crises inside and outside the country, journalists hung on every possible appointment made by the president-elect. Condoleeza Rice travels to India to confer over terrorism while Obama selects a secretary of state, causing writers to trumpet "co-presidency!"

All seemed to be swept aside until December 2nd. The opposition marched on Georgia, determined to win a stronghold Senate seat that would render their domination complete. Obama, the great political conqueror, allowed his underlings to take on this mop up action. Like a Japanese emperor, his voice is too sacred to be heard live, but he did allow it to be recorded for robocalls.

One of the last leaders standing after the deluge was Governor Sarah Palin who tirelessly campaigned in Georgia on behalf of Chambliss. He could not muster fifty percent of the vote in November, but won by ten percentage points in the runoff.

Our strategy should be clear. Chambliss' win must mark the turning point where the GOP says "you have come this far, but no farther." Palin's leadership helped a vulnerable Republican incumbent achieve a major victory. We must dust ourselves off, rally behind a proven and effective leader, and march forward, slicing away at the Democrats like Nimitz and Macarthur engaged Japan. We did not get it all back at once, but picked the right battles, used resources wisely, and never retreated because we had confidence in the plan and the leadership.

We also saw Palin showing a strong commitment towards being a Republican Party leader. Conversely, Obama has shown either a discomfort or a distaste for helping his fellow Democrats during and after the election. This should win him few real friends on Capitol Hill.

The time is now to plan and organize. Time to reorient our vision and move forward.

*********************************************************************

Party of the Common Man Update

Meanwhile the party of the common man says that you stink.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid laughed when he expressed his distaste for the "smell" of people moving through long lines in the summer to tour one of the most important buildings in the country. He said "you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol."

Now a Republican probably would not have said that, at least in earshot of a reporter, but if he or she did it would have been MSNBC's lead story for a week complete with endless discussion of the ramifications for Election 2010.

Obama says we are bitter. Reid says we stink. Great. I love the sympathy of the party of the common man.

The Orwell Doctrine

George Orwell's novel 1984 reflects the fears of his time, a resurgence of totalitarian regimes. The dictatorship he created was based both upon the terrifying regimes of Hitler and Stalin complete with a personality cult around the unreachable Leader named Big Brother. Totalitarian regimes love to play with words, for example the People's Republic of China was one of the main perpetrators of massacre and artificial famine in the past century. It had much to do with the power of Mao and nothing to do with helping the people.

Obama is not Mao, nor is he Hitler nor is he Stalin. However, he and his Democratic Party want to attack basic freedoms and cloak these efforts with language. The Left are itching to reenact what they call the "Fairness Doctrine."

This doctrine emerged in the late 1940s as a power assumed by the Federal Communications Commission to force radio broadcasters to grant equal time to all sides of a political issue. If enforced today, this would force a radio station to provide three hours to a liberal host if they run the Rush Limbaugh show for three hours. Local boards would be erected to ensure fair access.

It is telling that liberal presidencies and Supreme Courts have supported the concept while conservatives have opposed it. In the 1980s the Reagan Administration revoked the doctrine, citing the fact that it violated a radio station's right to free speech and also inhibited a station's right to operate in a free market. This allowed a proliferation of conservative talk shows to emerge on AM radio in the 1990s that proved popular and profitable. Meanwhile, well-funded attempts to establish liberal talk radio failed miserably. Seems that people did not want to listen to their ideas.

This attempt to squelch conservative radio is an outrage. If President Bush had used government action to silence Michael Moore or the liberal newspapers, the nation would have risen in outrage whether they agreed with the liberals' ideas or not. It's a question of free speech. Left wingers now have started feeling their power and arrogantly want to display it. It will start with the radio. Next they will come after people's guns. Then what? One shudders to think.

An Inconvenient Issue

The National Climatic Center recently reported that the year 2008 thus far has been the coolest in eleven years. Sea ice growth has increased at the most rapid level in decades. That information does not count the blast of early winter delivered to this part of the United States this month. But this doesn't make any sense. Global warming is supposed to destroy us all. What in the name of Al Gore is going on?

Global warming is dead as an American political issue. You heard it here first. Democrats lock stepped behind this issue that has been used around the world to break down capitalist economic systems. They saw it as a perfect way to discredit George W. Bush. Watch it now disappear.

For one thing, temperatures, especially in the eastern United States, have been noticeably cooler overall. Our long, hot summers have moderated except for a few bursts of heat. Winters have been moderate as well. Last spring we got a lot more precipitation than we had for many years. Of course the most looney have concocted the explanation that if temperatures rise OR fall, it is attributable to global warming. How convenient!

This issue has always been more political than anything, though. Do you really see Democrats from industrial and coal producing states actually supporting sweeping legislation to reduce our competitive advantage based upon an unproven theory? Now that Obama has revealed himself to be more of a savvy politician than a crusader, he will likely disappoint the radical Leftists that want to destroy capitalism and all its works. Now that the abominable Bush is gone, scientists will probably start voicing their skepticism's since they cannot be accused of being Bush lovers for having an opposing viewpoint. Radical Leftists who expected that global warming would roast capitalism will surely be disappointed.

The Farmer's Almanac has predicted a cooler winter this year as well as a long term cooling trend over the next few decades. They rely upon observations of sunspots for their predictions. This is science at work without the intrusive political tinge. Maybe they will actually start to admit that George W. Bush does not actually control the weather too, but that might be too much to hope for.

Or maybe now that Obama is almost president, he gets to run the weather machine for awhile.

ISI Finds That America and Its Elected Officials Fail Civics

The results are in and most of us failed.

The Interscholastic Studies Institute released a report on November 20, entitled
Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and
Institutions. According to the report:

More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI’s basic 33question
test on civic literacy and more than 1,700 people failed, with the average score 49 percent, or an “F.” Elected officials scored even lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent and only 0.8 percent (or 21) of all surveyed earned an “A.” Even more startling is the fact that over twice as many people know Paula Abdul was a judge on American Idol than know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

This is astonishing. Even among those with Bachelor's degrees from colleges, the score is only slightly higher at 57%. That still fails. ISI blames colleges for not adequately teaching the foundations of our political and economic system. According to the study, those who talk frequently about politics have a better grasp of the system regardless of their level of education.

Bachelor's degree holders specifically have a poor understanding of such basic institutions as the presidency and the electoral college. They also do not grasp the essentials of capitalism.

Although colleges certainly are to blame, high schools have to realize they failed as well. I learned more in two economics classes in high school than I did in college. We not only heard about supply and demand, but were obliged to demonstrate a complete understanding of it. My did that teacher love supply and demand curves! They were tedious then, but I am thankful now. Too many teachers abandoned the seemingly tedious to be more entertaining. Another teacher taught civics with the same kind of thoroughness. Both were Republicans although you never heard them say so in class. They believed in teaching ideas, but keeping politics out, something I respect.

Will this study have any impact? Hard to tell since ISI is a free market think tank. It is clear that America is losing its sense of itself and its grounding in the past.

You can take the quiz for yourself at:

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

Byrd and Reid's Fairy Tales

Stimulus packages are not in themselves bad. Sometimes they can jump start faltering economies. When we consider them, we need to base the decision of whether or not to use them on hard facts. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Byrd issued a joint statement defending their $13.5 billion stimulus package. It claims that the package will produce 635,000 new jobs.

That is pretty astounding but according to the Heritage Foundation and the Washington Examiner, these numbers do not add up. The numbers are based upon a Department of Transportation study that itself claims that such numbers are likely false. The story is linked below.

http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/TapscottsCopyDesk/Byrd_11-12.html

Stimulus is fine and sometimes necessary, but let us have the facts first before we spend.

****************************************************************

Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito was asking the same hard questions of auto executives this week. She asked them to prove the necessity of a bailout package when they had just received a $25 billion loan from the Department of Energy. Capito also pondered why some sectors of the economy received help and others did not, citing the fact that a number of West Virginia firms had gone out of business with no offer of help whatsoever. Her point was that we need our automakers, but we also need assurances that they will make the changes necessary to compete in the long term.