BluegrassBulletin.com

150th Anniversary Of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln

GOP Establishment Giving TEA Party Dose Of Own Medicine?

The fight for control of the republican party played out in the Virginia governor's race with the GOP establishment denying the TEA party candidate who won the primary against "their guy" enough funding to win, according to an article at the Washington Times.

Conservatives need to learn from what happened in Virginia. If it isn’t plainly obvious already, conservatives need to understand that the Republican establishment would rather lose an election to a Democrat than see a conservative triumph over an establishment candidate. Conservative candidates must plan a barebones campaign, and plan on not having the financial support of the Republican Party.

Well that sounds familiar.  The TEA party has said virtually the same thing: they would rather back a democrat than a republican who isn't their hand picked choice.

In fact there was another interesting development late in the Virginia campaign which might sound familiar.

The other thing that did Ken Cuccinelli in was the liberal sponsored, “faux” Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis. Sarvis pulled away a lot of votes from Cuccinelli. Only in literally the last day of the campaign did the story come out that Joe Liemandt, a Texas billionaire and a top fundraising bundler for Obama, had bankrolled the so-called Libertarian PAC that funded Robert Sarvis.

Imagine that, a Texas billionaire backs a libertarian in order to help keep a real republican out of office.  Hmmmm......

I told you a long time ago, this entire TEA party/Libertarian thing is being orchestrated by those who want to remove the republican party as the only check on their run toward a progressive agenda.

Guest Editorial Michael Reagan: Take Aim At The REAL Enemy

While we watch the S.S. Obamacare sink beneath the waves, and while we watch the White House explain why its signature legislative "achievement" is not the titanic disaster we all knew it would be, I have some advice for my fellow Republicans.

Shut up.

Quit shooting Cruz missiles at each other.

And take aim at the real enemy -- the Democrats and their awful agenda for America.

We can't blame John McCain, Lindsey Graham and the other anti-Ted Cruz senators for what they said or did during the government shutdown.

What they thought about defunding or delaying Obamacare -- or what they said to the media -- was irrelevant.

The only thing that really mattered was how those senators would have voted on the bills the House of Representatives sent over to the Senate.

And we can't blame them for not successfully defunding Obamacare when Harry Reid never even gave them a chance to vote on anything.

I'm not happy with McCain, Graham and a lot of other Republican senators in Washington who often speak and act like they've received brain transplants from members of The New York Times editorial board.

But I'm still 100 times happier with our least-conservative Republican senator than I would be with any Democrat that's out there.

Whatever their faults, McCain and the others saw the reality written on the wall. They knew Reid wasn't going to bring anything up for a vote that would jeopardize Obamacare. And they knew if he did, President Obama quickly would have vetoed it.

In the Republican House, it was the same story. Majority Leader John Boehner was blasted by conservatives but he did his best.

When he tried to explain the facts of life to the Tea Partiers in his caucus, they didn't believe him. Yet after that, Boehner still did everything the Republican suicide caucus asked him to do.

Everything Republicans have been saying about the dangers of Obamacare is right, but we can't keep attacking our own people.

The GOP is not big enough. We've always been a minority party. We can't afford to keep throwing our fellow Republicans under the bus, when we should be figuring out how to put more people on the Republican bus.

We Republicans need to wise up. We need to dismiss our circular political firing squad, get in a straight line, take aim at the real enemy and start blasting away.

We need to replace Reid, Chuck Schumer and every Democrat senator we can. Fighting among ourselves is not getting the GOP anywhere. Look at the last election.

The Tea Party sent up conservative candidates in primaries in Indiana, Nevada and Connecticut who beat Republican incumbents but then lost in the general elections. One of them was an ex-witch.

Now there's a real long-term winning strategy for the GOP.

If it's going to primary a Republican senator they think is insufficiently conservative, the Tea Party wing has to make sure its candidates can win in the fall elections.

Otherwise it's just being really stupid -- and we end up with a Democrat Senate and unstoppable legislative monstrosities like the Affordable Care Act.

If Republicans really want to change things for the better, if we really want to save America from the Democrats and Obamacare, we have to win back the Senate.

To do that, Republicans need to quit fighting each other, call off their civil war and start fighting the real enemy of freedom -- the Democrat Party.

The political reality is simple: The 2013 Senate is run by the Democrats. Harry Reid never brings up a vote that he disagrees with. And until Republicans take control of the Senate, nothing will change.

So don't blame Boehner or McCain -- or any of the Republicans in the House or Senate -- for the Obamacare fiasco. Blame Obama and the Democrats. And replace them.

Copyright ©2013 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Mike's column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For info on using columns contact Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com.

The Problem With The GOP

EDITORIAL

I am a fourth generation Kentucky Republican, married into a strong civil war era Republican family and have held nearly office at every level in the Republican Party of Kentucky.  I cut my teeth on politics in the 60's, and 70's and 80's when republicans didn't stand a chance of winning in all but a few places in Kentucky.

I am proud to have been part of the effort to break the stranglehold the democratic party had on government in Northern Kentucky and to have helped elect a republican governor in 2003.  I have many  conservative friends in the TEA party who are trying to bring the GOP back to its senses and I have many conservative friends who have weathered the storms and battles and are a bit confused by what they see as the accelerating decline of the republican brand.

So let me add one opinion to the question:  What is the problem with the GOP?

First, there really is no GOP any more.  Oh sure, there is still a party, but little in the way of a clear definition of what it stands for.  Yes there is a platform, but it hasn't governed the behavior of elected officials for decades.  We announce a mission statement then let anybody who runs under our banner choose which parts, if any, they will adhere to  and to what degree they abide.

Second, we have permitted the "other side" to define us.  Ask anybody who is hanging on to the nation's safety net what they think of republicans and I suspect you will get a pretty unflattering answer.  How much of the population does this represent?  Nearly half, and quite frankly, the half that votes alot because their safety net depends on it.  They see republicans as representing the wealthiest in our nation, have no ability to reason through the "trickle down" theory of "job creation" and couldn't care less if millionaires have to pay more taxes.  Hunger and poverty and fear drives them, not tax cuts.

Third, we have allowed the "socialists" to shame us and to mobilize against us feeding off of the perception that we are "heartless".  Some of them really do care about the poor, the sick and the elderly, but a bunch more of these progressives at the top of the political food chain are using the compassion of their supporters to fundamentally transform America into a socialist state.  They know what they are doing and so do we, but we haven't found a way to beat them.

Fourth, we are now nominating a bunch of young, "me generation" TEA party kids who are  enamored by the concept of "Bitcoin" without any understanding of the abject panic that senior citizens live in every day facing the prospect that they will be forced to live on less in a world that costs more.  Sure, paying for somebody else's Grandma's cataract surgery seems like an unwelcome burden to the under 50 crowd, and of course they see no reason why we can't balance the budget by cutting "entitlements" the euphemism for senior citizen care.  But how many people do they know trying to make it on $800 per month?

The whole idea of using a computer is second nature to these kids.  They can't understand why everybody isn't like them.  I know many people who are trying to pay their rent, their utilities, buy food, pay for life saving prescription medicines, pay their transportation costs and get by on less than $800 per month.  They are too old, or infirm to start a new career and will  not live long enough to save for retirement.  They are already too close to or past retirement.  Their very lives depend on the safety net of Social Security and Medicare.  They simply cannot absorb increases in costs or cuts to benefits.

The GOP needs to stop letting the kids force their world on the rest of us.  The GOP needs to stop being the enforcement arm of big business.  The GOP needs to develop a much more populist message and in order to do that the GOP  needs to listen to "the people".

And the GOP needs to stop forcing every candidate to fend for themselves.  If this is going to be the party of political relevance it needs to start acting like a "party", not a name, a banner under which people run, an organization that hosts a convention but will not help good candidates raise money, refuses to jump into races like the Virginia Governor's race and needs to close ranks.  And yes, it needs to begin recruiting the right candidates who can win, but not those who can win and then abandon the party's conservative principles.

There must be rules governing membership.  Like any organization there must be consequences of not abiding by the party's rules.  Every person should be eligible to run for office, but in order to get the "party nomination" there must be some degree of "party control" else a simple switch of registration could have enemies of conservatism winning as republicans for the purpose of destroying the party from within.

And lastly, the GOP needs to stop trying to return America to a day gone by.  It's gone by.  Yesterday is over your shoulder.  The world has changed and Mayberry was fiction then and not likely to come back through the effort of the best intentioned among us.  We need to look around, take stock of what this nation has become and find a way to win the hearts and minds first of the people we may eventually get to vote for us in the future.

And the longer we pursue policies "the people" see as "heartless" the longer we will suffer losses.  The TEA party and the GOP can preach to and pass the collection plate among the choir all it wants, but the larger congregation should be our focus.  We need to look around the nation and see who our countrymen are.  We can't win souls until we get them to listen and they certainly won't listen if they don't believe we care.

Thank You Mitch McConnell

There is an article at the Wall Street Journal in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell does a great service for the GOP and the country.  He tells it like it is about America's frustration with government, what the TEA party is up to and why he clearly deserves to be the next majority leader of the US Senate.

"The most important election yesterday wasn't the governor of New Jersey and it wasn't the governor of Virginia, it was the special election for Congress in South Alabama, where a candidate who said the shutdown was a great idea, the president was born in Kenya, and that he opposed Speaker Boehner came in second." The victory of a more electable Republican, is significant, Mr. McConnell says. To govern, parties must win. To win, parties must "run candidates that don't scare the general public, [and] convey the impression that we could actually be responsible for governing, you can trust us—we're adults here, we're grown-ups."

EXACTLY!  Sure, you can grouse all you want about the fact that McConnell wasn't able to single-handedly repeal Obamacare, but just listen for a minute.  Expecting him to have THAT much power is a disconnect from reality.

Is the GOP in civil war? "No, I don't think so." Everyone agrees on the central issue: "We would all love to get rid of ObamaCare. If we had the votes to do it we'd do it in a heartbeat. It's the single worst piece of legislation that's been passed in modern times."But "we have a disability right now—it's called in the Senate '55 of them and 45 of us.' I'm not great at math, but 55 is more than 45. . . . I think it's irresponsible for some people to characterize themselves as sort of true conservatives, to mislead their followers into believing you can get an outcome that you can't possibly get."

And Mitch is spot on in his analysis of what many in the TEA party are really up to.

The tea party, he says, consists of "people who are angry and upset at government—and I agree with them." But "I think, honestly, many of them have been misled. . . . They've been told the reason we can't get to better outcomes than we've gotten is not because the Democrats control the Senate and the White House but because Republicans have been insufficiently feisty. Well, that's just not true, and I think that the folks that I have difficulty with are the leaders of some of these groups who basically mislead them for profit. . . . They raise money . . . take their cut and spend it" on political action that hurts Republicans.

In his usual calm, reasoned and measured approach to political reality Mitch has provided us once again with a voice of reason.  We need to elect adults, not tantrum throwing protesters.  We cannot beat back the Obama agenda until we get a majority in the Senate and hopefully control the White House.  And for all the good ideas that many in the TEA party have, and their understandable anger, many of those who are taking the lead in that group are in it for the money and the power and the prestige who are misleading their followers.

Are members of the tea party on the ground being fooled by operators, profit makers and cynics? "Yes," he said, followed by a brief silence. He declined to say more, but emphasized again that "I make a distinction between the leaders and the followers. I mean, I think a lot of well-meaning people are sending money to organizations having no idea they're gonna spend all that money against Republicans. Because they're being misled."

I've been saying these things for a long time now.  Thank you Mitch McConnell for saying them so much better.

Oh, and thank you for saying without a flinch something else I've been saying all along too.

He refers to the Senate Conservatives Fund. "That's the one I'm prepared to be specific about." The fund "has elected more Democrats than the Democratic Senatorial Committee over the last three cycles." The group is targeting Mr. McConnell with ads slamming his leadership during the shutdown. "Right now they're on the air in obvious coordination with Harry Reid's super PAC—Harry Reid's!—in the same markets, at roughly the same amount, at the same time." But says he isn't worried about his own race: "I don't wanna be overly cocky, but I'm gonna be the Republican nominee next year."

Damned right you are Mitch.

What Would The TEA Party Say About Women's Rights?

We are constantly being told that the GOP is struggling to win votes among American women.  This suggests that the democrats have a better reputation among women voters for women's rights.  Now we hear of a shocking answer by Secretary of State John Kerry to a female reporters question on his trip to Saudi Arabia.

Following recent news of a Kuwait woman being arrested for driving her ill father to the hospital, in violation of the law there that prohibits women from driving cars, a reporter asked Kerry where he stood on the issue of the Saudis having the same rules in the larger context of women's rights.  Here was Kerry's response:

“It’s no secret that in the United States of America we embrace equality for everybody . . . [but] it’s up to Saudi Arabia to make its own decisions about its own social structure.”

As one commentator pointed out:

[T]he response was immediately noted by civil libertarians as coming off as remarkably relativistic and restrained. Yet these responses are clearly scripted on diplomatic trips. Women’s rights is not a question of “social structure.” That is how the Saudis view it. It is their religion and social structure that is cited for the medieval treatment of women. Equality is a human right that by definition transcends “social structures” and national preferences. Otherwise, racial and religious discrimination would be simply a matter of cultural tastes. [Turley]

I want you to re-read that again.  It was "civil-libertarians" who objected.  Aren't the "civil-libertarians" a big part of the TEA party?  And isn't the Ron Paul influenced TEA party decidedly "non-interventionist" when it comes to foreign policy?

So why would civil libertarians feel entitled to even comment on how another country treats its women?  Moreover, let's not forget that this is a democrat Secretary of State presumably representing our democrat president.  So tell me now, how is it that the democrats can claim the "women's vote" and the civil libertarins can complain like toothless dogs on a short heavy chain barking with no chance of biting, but the GOP with its strong record of standing up for women's rights is the party that has problems winning the women's vote?

Oh, yeah, I forgot.  The GOP thinks the government shouldn't pay to have baby girls suctioned apart or burned alive with chemicals or pulled out of the womb and stabbed in the brain.  It's all about that abortion thing isn't it?  You know, the FIRST civil right, the "right to life".

Jim DeMint Doing Friends No Favors

According to Breitbart Jim DeMint, who now heads the Heritage Foundation and founded the Senate Conservatives PAC, is trying to unseat Mitch McConnell.  The National Republican Senatorial Committee has taken a very dim view of that effort and is making the friends of Jim DeMint pay for that decision.

According to several reports the NRSC, which is primarily charged with helping to elect and keep republicans in the Senate, has made it clear that a third party contractor who has been doing business with DeMint's rogue group should not be given any business by current republican office holders.  And for good reason.

In describing his reason for boycotting the consulting firm, Jamestown Associates, NRSC head Brad Dayspring told the New York Times “We’re not going to do business with people who profit off of attacking Republicans. Purity for profit is a disease that threatens the Republican Party.” 

It has been my opinion for some time that the "purity" claim of TEA party candidates is a hoax to begin with.  Those claiming purity are using that claim as a rung on the ladder to get power and money for themselves.  Clearly the only "pure" thing being pursued by consultants that market themselves to the likes of Jim DeMint is "pure profit".

Of course the TEA party is crying foul over the boycott, which is of course hypocritical.  Members of the TEA party caucus have made it clear that they are boycotting the GOP.  A little turn about only seems like fair play.

Related articles

Gloves Off: GOP Establishment Goes After Tea Party

War: NRSC blacklists ad firm because it helps Senate Conservatives Fund target Republicans

How the Koch Brothers Orchestrated the Shutdown

WH Says Durbin's Accusation Of Insult Not True

Dick Durbin reported on Facebook that a GOP legislator told President Obama during a meeting (that Durbin didn't attend) "I can't even stand to look at you."  If that had been true it would have been an outrage.  But it didn't happen says the White House, and those from the GOP in attendance who are demanding an apology.

And if it didn't happen, Durbin most certainly does need to apologize.  I understand that as an Obama democrat he feels the need to help destroy the GOP, but that is not what the people of this country want, politicians out to destroy each other.

Reasonable people want reasoned debate, honest compromise and to get things done.  Bitching about the scratches in the paint won't get the motor running and Americans have been waiting far too long already for the economy to get going.

Durbin needs to come clean quickly and spend some of his political capital making this right.

But instead what is he doing?

“Durbin stands by his comments,” said Max Gleischman, a spokesman for the Illinois Democrat. [POLITICO]

Dick Durbin Slams Republican Leadership

I'm no fan of Dick Durbin, but if what he says is true, then whoever made the comment was indeed disrespectful.  Of course, if someone did make this comment then he/she was clearly expressing the feelings of many Americans, but for a guy who has been trained in debate and decorum, this would be inexcusable behavior.

The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin, says that a House Republican leader told off President Barack Obama during a negotiation meeting, and that they are so disrespectful it’s practically impossible to have a conversation with them.

“In a ‘negotiation’ meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: ‘I cannot even stand to look at you,’” Durbin wrote in a post on his Facebook page over the weekend. [POLITICO]

Why Don't They Form Their Own Party?

EDITORIAL

TEA party republicans are not only bashing their fellow GOP'ers, they aren't supporting them financially either, says a report at POLITICO.  The National Republican Congressional Committee is doing well with its fundraising, but TEA party protesters like Thomas Massie and Justin Amash are out to hurt re-election efforts.

As I reported earlier, Massie bragged about how proud he was to learn that his idol, Ron Paul, had never contributed anything, zero dollars, to the republican effort in the House.  Though most House members are expected to donate in the six figure range, Massie has only donated $6,000.

It is quite clear that these folks not only do not want to play by the two party system they are engaged in a pattern of conduct clearly destined to do harm to the republican majority in the House of Representatives.

The election and re-election of republicans in the House is crucial to offsetting the otherwise absolute control of the government by Barack Obama's democratic friends.

Granted, the TEA party malcontents don't like the agenda or the behavior of the "establishment republicans" and have carved out a niche for themselves among Americans who feel the same way, but the fact remains that a strong GOP is the only check on a runaway progressive future for America and working inside the halls of Congress to weaken that line of defense suggests that these guys aren't really republicans at all.  In fact, their are the new RINO's.

As I have pointed out many times, the work these individuals should be concentrating on is developing a plan with details about how they will address the spending issues about which they so often complain.

While the President feels free to threaten that the TEA party plan is to impose draconian cuts to Medicare and Social Security in order to scare the most vulnerable in our nation, the TEA party needs to step up and address this issue squarely.  It is simply a fraud on the American people for them to say they are going to bring government spending to a halt in order to impose discipline.  What are they going to do away with and how much will it mean?

Take a look at this chart.  The only thing the Congress can do is to tinker within the range of "discretionary spending", or make cuts to the military budget or to cut deeply into Social Security or Medicare, exactly what the President is saying.

In other words the TEA party folks in Congress are building their entire brand around cutting government spending without being precisely clear about where they would make the cuts.  Sure, ending the days when the military was given a blank check to buy $100 hammers makes for a good anecdote in a stump speech, but those little tweaks don't among to a hill of beans when it comes to the size and scope of the spending.

Clearly Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are the biggest outlays next to the military.  And sure, raising the retirement age, ending future social security benefits for people now under 18, or other such proposals are good ways to reduce future expenses, but none of those things deal with the here and now.

Why these folks can't bring themselves to even say the words "increase revenues" is beyond me.  During the 2012 Congressional campaign every time I mentioned those words in the middle of a bunch of people drunk on TEA they immediately became enraged by the notion that any form of taxes was so terribly bad that even discussing them was the mark of the devil.

Well let's be adults here.  How in the hell do you think we pay our soldiers?  How in the hell do you think we build bridges, repair highways, maintain national monuments except with tax revenue?  How do these nit-wits in Congress think they get paid except with tax revenue?  So why do they let their brain numbed audiences shout down any discussion of increasing revenue?

Are they willing to let the people of the nation become so dumbed down as to think that all increases in revenue will result in tax increases on individuals?  What kind of public servant would let that happen?

Apparently the TEA party bunch will, and they are.

NO, increasing revenue DOES NOT mean raising taxes.  It can also be accomplished, as Ronald Reagan said, by improving the economy.  "A rising tide lifts all boats."

Why don't we hear plans for making the economic engine of America more productive?  Why are they so laser like focused on cutting spending that they can't imagine how the government could inspire more productivity, more spending by private industry on employees, equipment, building, development of new technologies or even helping to brand "Made in the USA" as once again the mark of the best products in the world?

How about using the power of the Federal Government to inspire industries to bring jobs back to the USA?  When we increase the number of people paying into OUR Treasury rather than a foreign treasury we increase revenue.

How about eliminating the IRS and the individual income tax and replacing it with a consumption tax?  Oh, the progressives will cry, but that will put more of a burden on poor people.  Seriously? When nearly half of the population pays no taxes and the top 1% pays about 18% of income taxes, we are going to let that kind of argument win the discussion about the fairness of taxes?

And how about just turning the subject of the conversation away from the sophomoric monotone of cutting spending and come up with a real plan, say, legislating away the power of a huge bloated bureaucracy to interfere with every aspect of our lives and taking the lid off of a nation where freedom and liberty were the only fuels needed to make us the greatest, most powerful and prosperous nation of individuals in the world?

Look, if these TEA party dunderheads want to keep you dumb so they can stay in office, why don't they go do it in their own party?  Why try to undermine the thin line of defense the GOP is holding against runaway progressives in this country?

And if they do form their own party they can even look back in history and choose a familiar name for themselves.  I suggest the Know-Nothing party.  There are more parallels than you might imagine.

Related articles

Massie Proud Of Ron Paul's Ineffectiveness

Keeping Score: Massie Proud Of His Goose Egg

What, No Blame For TEA Party Over Shutdown?

Third Party Needed Says Majority Of Americans

Criticism Of McConnell Is Mind Boggling

Libertarian Amash Draws Primary Challenge