Can Republicans Become The Party Of The People?

Good question. Short answer: Yes. But the GOP has to start acting like Republicans to do it.

In many respects we already are the party of the people. The GOP has 40-60% of the country ideologically, depending on the issue. What we need is to quit balkanizing ourselves through factional identity infighting between libertarian conservatives, social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, pro-defense conservatives, pro-business conservatives - something our opponents promote heavily, by the way, and use to isolate us - and focus on the big picture with which we all agree.

And, we need to learn to grow a pair. Fighting for what you believe in is no fault.

That Red Line...

...Is getting much thinner. And yes, you said that, Mr. President.

The Old College Try.

Ever watch one of those lopsided college football games where a top-ranked university played some small-time regional school, and of course whipped their ass? Like, 70-0? And the best the commentators can say was the small school "tried their best"?

Well, that pretty much sums up this Hollywood excuse for going to war with Syria. Sadly, De Niro is right about Obama - he is trying his best. And therein lies the crux of most all our current problems, dear readers: Obama's best isn't good enough. We've sent Furman out to play LSU.

Intolerent, Know-Nothing Dickheads.

Hey, all you hip, with it, upper-middle class kiddies who think they know everything because you have an iPad and taken a class or two, Pat Condell has a few words for you. Listen closely. It's called freedom of speech.

I'll Take 'A Convenient Shooting' For 5,000,000 Votes, Alex.

When is the prosecution of George Zimmerman not about race? When it's all about race.

To be fair, this case was never really about race - or justice, for that matter - but deflection and votes. Race was simply the means to that end. Obama needed to focus his base in 2012 away from his disastrous presidency, and turn out that base in record numbers. What better way than to have a modern day Emmett Till to parade around, with George Zimmerman as a useful Bull Conner? Add to that Obama's working to suppress the opposition (and mostly white) vote, plus the willing and eager help of the Mainstream Media to accomplish both, he was able to pull it off. (OK, a milquetoast Republican candidate didn't help...)

If this was truly about race, then the folks who should be up in arms right now are the Hispanics. Zimmerman is, by today's definition, Hispanic, not white. But Obama needed the Hispanic vote, too. When Zimmerman's ethnic origins came out, his description in The Left / Mainstream Media moved quickly, Orwell-like, from "white" to "white Hispanic". Had you ever heard of the classification of 'white Hispanic' before, dear readers? How about a 'black Hispanic'? Me, either. Since one of his parents was white, they claim, then Zimmerman was "white". By this definition then, Barack Obama is not our first African-American president - but our first 'white African-american' president.

If whipping up racial tension wasn't the goal of Obama and his supporters in The Left / Mainstream Media, then why keep the "white" descriptor in there? Because it maximized black anger and liberal guilt, and it kept this from becoming a black vs. Hispanic thing. Which generated votes for Obama in 2012. And that, dear readers, is the only reason George Zimmerman is a household name today.

Today's Five Minutes Hate.

A Harvard professor says white people should die:

A Harvard professor wants to abolish the white race.

Noel Ignatiev, a founder of a journal called Race Traitor and a fellow at Harvard's W.E.B. DuBois Institute, a leading black-studies department, argues in the current issue of Harvard Magazine that "abolishing the white race" is "so desirable that some may find it hard to believe" that anyone other than "committed white supremacists" would oppose it.

Welcome to Obama's transformative change. At least it's out in the open now.

We Told You So.

ObamaCare isn't looking too good - even to Democrats.

Yes We Can...

...Pout.

Am I Missing Something?

Team Hopenchange is insisting that if those evil, heartless Republicans don't raise the debt ceiling, like, now,

WE'LL GO BROKE AND WE CANT PAY OUR BILLS AND GRANDMA WILL STARVE AND LITTLE BILLY WILL GET POLIO AND OIL COMPANY LOBBYISTS WILL RAVAGE YOUR DAUGHTER AND THE EARTH WILL BOIL (OR FREEZE - TAKE YOUR PICK), AND THUNDERING HERDS OF GROVER NORQUISTS WILL ROAM THE LANDS UNABATED...

But!

We seem to have the jack to contemplate another "stimulus".

It's all a matter of priorities. And you, dear readers, are not a priority of the current administration.

We Have Met The Enemy...

...And he is us. It's time we grew up and started paying our own bills, not looking for someone else to pay them.

Advocacy Dreamin'.

Proof, as if more were needed, that The Episcopal Church (tm) is far more concerned with mortal politics than immortal souls.

Slip Of The Spin.

Obama doesn't want "massive job killing tax increases" right now. Nope. Nope. Nope.

He wants to wait 'till 2013.

Remember that come November 2012.

Hopenchange Versus Real World.

Real World 1; Hopenchange minus $384 billion.

Problem is the jack they're minus isn't their money. It's our money. And our children's money, and our grand children's money and our great-grand children's money. Which we/they will have to pay back to those staunch American friends, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the EU.

The Obama Administration In One Sentence.

And in their own words, too:

“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money”.

Yep. Does sum it up rather nicely, don't yout think?

The Doctor Is, Out.

At least, the doctor we want. If Americans think ObamaCare will return us to the neighborhood family doctor, they are sadly mistaken.

I remember well as a child going to Dr. Webb in New Orleans. He had been my mom's doctor as well when she was younger, and he knew my dad. He knew us all personally, and treated us as such. We were, in the best sense of the word, his "patients". When I had bad bouts of bronchitis Dr. Webb would be at the emergency room at 2am. On several occasions he made house calls. My parents had major medical insurance, but the thought never crossed our mind to have someone else pay for the routine stuff. He preformed a service, and my folks paid him. We had the same relationship with our dentist, our eye doctor, etc., etc.

Now fast forward to 1988, and I was introduced to something called Harvard Community Health Plan (then HCHP, now Harvard/Pilgrim), a "community based" HMO. In it, I was assigned (no choice) to a clinic (in Watertown, MA), and I was told I could choose any doctor "accepting patients". Only two out of the 40 or so there were accepting. When you went to the clinic the wait was hours, not minutes, even with an appointment. Because it only "cost" a $5 copay people jammed the place unannounced for any minor malady. The doctor never knew me as anything other than a folder and a number - there was never any personal relationship. I remember bringing Dr. Webb a gift at Christmas (a bottle of scotch IIRC) and we'd chat about sports, Scouts, good eating habits and the like, and I remember him coming over to the house one Thanksgiving. My "primary care" doctor at HCHP didn't even recognize me in the grocery - "I'm sorry, I see SO many people", he excused.

HCHP was indeed cheap, but it was made that way by mass-production and a purposeful lack of relationship. Since those of us in it had little (if any) skin in the game, controlling cost through volume and "gate-keeping" were SOP. HCHP appeared to have little reason to develop personal relationships, because I wasn't anyone's "patient". The relationship we did have was apparently that of a wigit on an assembly line. You will fit here. You will go when we tell you, where we tell you. We will regulate you. We know better. Oh, and to hell with a second opinion.

When my daughter was born we were assigned a birth hospital, my wife was assigned an OB, etc., etc. Yes, we paid only a couple hundred bucks and lucked out with a great OB, but we had no, absolutely no, say in any decision affecting us. HCHP made the calls in the name of "controlling costs". And when my friend Hugh and I blew up a box of surgical gloves like balloons and taped them to my wife's bed, a nurse reamed us out for being "wasteful", and said we were helping to "drive up the cost of health care".

Harvard / Pilgrim is one of the programs Obama and pals hold up as an example of how they think "health care" should be "delivered". After dealing with that I prefer the old way. And write my own check, thank you.

Slartibartfast, Someone's Stealing Your Ship.

Stephen Green has nailed the perfect analogy for what Obama and his wiz-kiddies have wrought: A Bistromath Economy. Well, a 'Somebody Else's Problem' field does seem to be the goal.

For the uninitiated: Bistromath.

Only A Misty-Eyed Marxist Or A Community Organizer...

...Would think it makes economic sense to spend $278,000 (of somebody else's money, it should be pointed out -ed.) to add or save one $50,000 a year job.

And they wonder why we have no recovery. The good news is, such unrealistic and pig-headed logic can only exist, thankfully, in Socialist Worker Party meetings and college faculty clubs (but I repeat myself - ed.). The bad news is those are the very folks running the show until January 2013.

Well, Duh!

Guess what? The government really can't spend us out of a recession. Only a community organizer or a Marxist (but I repeat myself) would think otherwise.

I'm Shocked... Shocked!

Mary Landrieu isn't a "moderate". Proof:

Sixteen Democratic senators want the Justice Department to look into whether voting rights are being jeopardized in states that require photo identification in order for people to vote.

And who were these Sixteen Democrats?

The 16 senators include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Patty Murray of Washington, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, Mark Begich of Alaska, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and Tom Udall of New Mexico.

Is anybody really surprised? After her 'Louisiana Purchase' vote for ObamaCare, do you really need more proof that Mary Landrieu is wholly owned by Reid/Obama, and is more interested in representing the interests of the Washington Elite over her constituents?

The Bayou State has had a picture ID requirement for some years, and I find it no intrusion. We require photo identification for things far more pedestrian than the sanctity of the Vote. You have to pony up a picture ID to buy beer, buy smokes, cash a check, get on a plane, or rent a car. I'm glad the requirement is there, actually, and I have first hand experience as to why: After returning to Louisiana from 7 years in New England, I found I had continued to "vote" in Orleans Parish for five of those seven years - even though I was lawfully registered to vote in Newton, Massachusetts, and had never come back to Louisiana to vote during that time.

The Right to Vote is the very basis for our Republic, and it must be kept secure and above reproach if we, The People, are to have any confidence that the system is accurate and fair. Why doesn't our Senior Senator like that idea very much?

A Slave To Narrative.

George Stephanopolis, meet Abe Lincoln.