We Still Hold These Truths
The Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner ran a handful of passages in his column from Matthew Spalding’s latest book “We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future.”
Read MoreLeadership/Communications
AFA warns senators: Your vote on “thought crimes” bill will be remembered
I couldn’t resist posting this press release from the American Family Association. It’s important for Illinois Republican primary voters to remember that Mark Kirk, candidate for the U.S. Senate, sponsored(!) and voted for this bill in the U.S. House.
Read MoreLaura Ingraham’s “Ten for 10” – not a bad list
Political gimmicks sometimes work, sometimes don’t – but whichever category this falls into, radio talk show host Laura Ingraham’s “Ten for 10” petition provides a good list for candidates to support in 2010:
1) Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR). Limit federal spending growth to the percentage in population growth plus the rate of inflation; provide taxpayers the option of filing a post-card sized return using a low, flat tax rate of 15%
2) End Tax-funded abortions. Stop federal payments to Planned Parenthood and prohibit any taxpayer-subsidized health insurance plan from covering abortion
Read MoreObama’s U.N. speech, Afghanistan, and 91 years ago today
Barack Obama’s first speech to the United Nations this week wasn’t exactly greeted by plaudits from the thinkingpolitical right. The Heritage Foundation’s Foundry Blog had this to say Thursday morning:
Read MoreObama the university administrator; and spotlighting higher education
In case you missed it, historian and author Victor Davis Hanson penned an excellent column for National Review a few days ago outlining the best explanation of Barack Obama’s behavior that I’ve seen yet.
Read MoreReal leadership from the unelected ranks
Real leaders don’t fear activism, they inspire it. The reason this state continues to suffer through Democratic Party domination is due to the abject failure of Republican leaders here to do what’s necessary to win support and muster a political army. Ditto when it comes to the national level, where the Bush-Hastert years were squandered because of gross incompetence.
On Monday I mentioned the twelve year old GOPAC “Citizen Activist Guide” which outlines the basics that too many Republicans seem to have forgotten. Our GOP leaders in party and public office haven’t exactly led any charges, so a natural atrophy has taken place.
Read MoreLegislator excuses and extreme déjà vu
Yesterday evening I had the opportunity to time travel. Instead of merely standing at a Republican Party event in September 2009 I was transported back to October 1991. On both occasions I was able to have a one-on-one conversation with a Republican elected official who was available to the people who had taken the time to attend local political meetings.
Read MoreIllinois GOP members of congress and the health care debate
Are you hearing from your Illinois GOP members of congress about health care reform?
Today Townhall.com columnist David Limbaugh nicely summarized the status of the current health care debate:
“Liberals say Republicans have no health care solutions. So their answer is to give us more of what caused most of the problems we have today: government intervention and control.
Read MoreRepublicans better start addressing our nation’s economic insanity
Columnist Robert Samuelson wrote a piece today titled “California’s Reckoning and Ours” – that has “national implications”:
“California has reached a tipping point. Its government made more promises than its economy can easily support. For years, state leaders papered over the contradiction with loans and modest changes. By overwhelming these expedients, the recession triggered an inevitable reckoning.”
Read MoreAmateurs, professionals, teacher unions and strikes
Last year writer and scholar Thomas Sowell had this to say about “Amateurs Outdoing Professionals”:
“When amateurs outperform professionals, there is something wrong with that profession. If ordinary people, with no medical training, could perform surgery in their kitchens with steak knives, and get results that were better than those of surgeons in hospital operating rooms, the whole medical profession would be discredited.
Read MoreMark Kirk is not a “moderate” on abortion
My colleague Doug Ibendahl summed up U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk’s pro-abortion record as follows – and I couldn’t agree more:
“In 2003 Kirk voted AGAINST the federal ban on partial birth abortion. That vote put him more on the fringe than even his vote this year for Obama’s economy-wrecking cap & trade scheme.
Read MoreWould the signers of the Declaration of Independence put up with this?
To answer the question in my title – not a chance. When you read about the strength, courage and principle that defined the founding generation, it’s easy to see how they’d be running primary candidates against every failed Republican Party office holder they could.
I shouldn’t have to explain what I mean by “failed.”
Barack Obama is president, Nancy Pelosi is U.S. House Speaker, and Al Franken is now the 60th Democrat in the now filibuster-proof United States Senate.
Read MoreA government run by creeps and misfits (Part 1)
As a veteran of political party, campaign and legislative staff politics and government in both Washington D.C. and Illinois, let me tell you the news of the past few days doesn’t surprise me one bit. Specifically, I’m referring to the destructive behavior of South Carolina Governor Mark Stanford and the continued anti-Republican Party voting of Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk.
There’s a lot of odd people in politics – in fact, the arena seems to be a magnet for them. Columnist Mark Steyn has penned a brilliant column that ran in the Orange County Register this past Friday – the title and subtitle of it was as follows:
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Raiders of the Lost Ark
In case you were wondering what happens with all those studies, reports, commentary pieces and talk show transcripts after they’ve been printed – I’ve been able to obtain a picture of the latest week’s batch being rolled into the conservative movement’s warehouse for storage.
Read MoreGOP 101: Taking it to the streets – the left gets it, the right doesn’t
But I also know a good number of pretenders. “Bloggers,” fake “journalists,” people whose names appear on letterhead as the ‘executive director’ of this or the ‘president’ of that. For twenty-five years the political right has excelled at forming independent organizations and the end result of all that self important printed stationary is that the Democrats run things in most of the country.
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