GOP should propose a victory parade for Iraq veterans
By: A_Texan (Diary) | August 22nd at 12:39 AM |
We owe thanks to God–and our gallant soldiers, sailors, and marines–for measure of victory obtained in Iraq. As our combat operations come to a close, our troops should be publicly honored with a victory parade. It is to be hoped that our President shares this sentiment–and with confidence Republican members of Congress and Republican candidates for election should propose a victory parade to be held–and | Read More »
Whiney and condescending rich Republicans–a self-caricature
By: A_Texan (Diary) | April 13th at 11:59 AM |
Phyllis Schlafly is a heroine of mine. She was a conservative when it was hard–when there were NO major national organizations in the country who offered strong opposition to cultural liberalism. Despite the absence of the internet, talk radio, and the media and organizational monopoly held by the left, she was able to organize an effective opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. I’m still amazed | Read More »
A conservative President will have a constitutional duty to “nullify” the individual mandate
By: A_Texan (Diary) | March 23rd at 12:59 PM |
God willing, Barack Obama will be replaced with a President who recognizes the individual mandate, a key component of Obamacare. It will be not the right, but the duty of the new President to exercise his constitutional powers to effectively nullify the “individual mandate.” The President, like all state and federal officials, pursuant to Article VI, takes an oath under the Constitution to uphold the Constitution, and, | Read More »
Time to take “pro-life Democrats” off the endangered species list
By: A_Texan (Diary) | March 21st at 04:44 PM |
Alas, whether because of global warming, the Iraq War, or something else that is George Bush’s fault, a once endangered species is now extinct, or virtually so. At the very least, there are not breeding pairs left. I am referring to the species “pro-life Democrat.” This extinction is not the first to befall the Democratic Party. As Abraham Lincoln explained 150 years ago, another species | Read More »
The Counterfeit Moderation of the New Latte Party
By: A_Texan (Diary) | March 12th at 10:31 AM |
So this morning I read that there is an answer to the Tea Party. The “Coffee Party,” or perhaps more precisely–the “Latte Party.” http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/12/coffee.party.people/index.html?hpt=C1 Nothing against lattes. But I strongly suspect that these folks are not sipping on the cheap Joe I’m enjoying right now. What is most outrageous about these folks, who apparently think that we’re not “taxed enough already,” is their counterfeit moderation. | Read More »
Not the Kennedy Seat–the Webster Seat, the Sumner Seat, the Lodge Seat
By: A_Texan (Diary) | January 20th at 10:17 AM |
Scott Brown has some pretty famous precedessors. Besides Ted Kennedy, and John Kennedy, that Senate office has been held by some very notable citizens. Indeed, some of the great conservatives and Republicans have held that seat: Daniel Webster–noble defender of Union and the rights of contract. Charles Sumner–great Republican, the scourge of the “twin relics of barbarism”–slavery and polygamy (1856 Republican platform). Henry Cabot Lodge–Republican Senate | Read More »
Let’s save Obama’s presidency by defeating his healthcare legislation
By: A_Texan (Diary) | December 16th at 04:15 PM |
It is frequently remarked, by supporters and opponents of President Obama and his healthcare “reform” proposals, that his “presidency” hangs in the balance. Obama himself has reportedly told reluctant House Democrats that a failure to support his proposals would “destroy my presidency”. http://reason.com/blog/2009/07/22/obama-youre-going-to-destroy-m What is the “presidency”? And how would it be “destroyed” by a failure to pass his proposals? The President is the chief | Read More »
Can we repeat the success of ’94—1894, that is?
By: A_Texan (Diary) | November 12th at 10:41 AM |
I am an incurable optimist. Many folks have drawn parallels between 1994 and 2010, dreaming that the Republicans will pick up the 50 or so seats in the House and 7 or so seats in the Senate. I think such a victory is indeed possible. Perhaps we ought to dream bigger. 1894 was a much more momentous election. Mismanagement by the Cleveland administration and the | Read More »
Olympia Snowe and the Mythical “Fiscal Conservative, but Socially Moderate” Republican
By: A_Texan (Diary) | October 13th at 02:24 PM |
For decades now, pro-life and pro-traditional marriage have been identified as the “extreme” element of the GOP, with countless Republican office-holders–and office-seekers–carefully distinguishing themselves a fiscal hawks but “moderate” on questions such as abortion (with “moderate” meaning favoring unlimited open season on the lives of the unborn). These fiscal hawks have routinely derided pro-life Republicans as divisive, distracting the Party from its so-called core beliefs | Read More »
Open Letter to RNC: Please Stop Sending Deceptive Fundraising Letters
By: A_Texan (Diary) | September 18th at 03:04 AM |
Dear President Steele: My wife and I frequently give small donations to a number of causes, including to Republican candidates whose principles are consistent with our own. As a result, our names appear on dozens of mailing lists as potential donors. We frequently receive copies of mass fundraising letters from various organizations, including the Republican National Committee (“RNC”). Among the mailings we often receive include | Read More »
Nostalgia for 1935, and 1965 (or Liberals Living in the Past That They Destroyed)
By: A_Texan (Diary) | August 13th at 12:02 PM |
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen various commentators of the left and moderate left draw parallels between Obama’s health-care push and the situation of LBJ in 1965 or FDR in the early years of the New Deal. Doris Kearns Goodwin (whom I like alot) has stated that now is Obama’s “Johnson Moment,” that now is the time “when the president has to take charge, | Read More »
Call them DEBTOCRATS
By: A_Texan (Diary) | July 1st at 03:21 PM |
So here I was thinking I had come up with a new term of endearment: “Debtocrats.” Alas for me, the term is not new, apparently. Not only are other internet commentators using it: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/13/stupid-rnc-to-pass-resolution-rebranding-democrats-the-democrat-socialist-party/comment-page-2/ but the term goes back at least to the 1950s, when coined (for the first time?) by a one-term Republican Congressman from WV, Francis J. Love. http://www.wvculture.org/history/government/eisenhowerwheeling02.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_J._Love So in honor | Read More »
Subsidized Sodomy and Obama’s New Discriminatory “Domestic Partner” Policies
By: A_Texan (Diary) | June 16th at 10:55 PM |
So tonight there is news that Obama, acting pursuant to some unknown legal authority (I truly mean unknown–at least to me), will issue an executive order granting certain governmental benefits to the same-sex “partners” of federal employees. Unless this policy is radically unlike the policies adopted by corporate America, the policy would amount to subsidized sodomy, and arbitrarily discriminates against persons share a residence with | Read More »
Contra Kmiec et al., Sotomayor has already signaled that she will be a reliable friend of abortion on the Supreme Court
By: A_Texan (Diary) | June 2nd at 06:36 PM |
So many commentators have suggested that Judge Sotomayor’s approach to abortion and its alleged (I’ll say) protection in our Constitution. Many journalists with the mainstream media have repeated the claim that “[a]s appellate judge, Sotomayor hasn’t confronted core questions about abortion. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1076535.html For a brief, whimsical moment, I allowed myself to dream that Judge Sotomayor might, in the back of her head, filled with (very | Read More »
Judicial impartiality and the unabridged (prior) context of Judge Sotomayor’s “La Raza” remarks
By: A_Texan (Diary) | June 1st at 12:40 AM |
So we’ve been hearing alot about how conservatives have taken Judge Sotomayor’s 2001 remarks out of “context.” Here’s some unabridged prior context. Judge Sotomayor chose as her foil the remarks of Judge Miriam Cederbaum, Judge Sotomayor’s former colleague at the SDNY court, a Reagan appointee, and now a senior judge. Here are the comments with which Judge Sotomayor disagreed. The pendulum swings back and forth. The pioneers | Read More »
Judge Sotamayor v. Other Latino Judges at Berkeley–She Rejected their Call for Impartiality
By: A_Texan (Diary) | May 28th at 06:21 PM |
I decided today to dig a bit deeper into the context of Judge Sotomayor’s comments at the Sympoisium. It was worse than I thought–I figured the context would make her comments seem less radical. In truth, however, the context was her attempted refutation of the point made by some other participants in the symposium–viz., that judges should seek to overcome their prejudices in deciding cases. | Read More »
The American Tradition of Successful Populist Fiscal Restraint
By: A_Texan (Diary) | May 25th at 01:14 AM |
It has been frequently noted that as our national debt has grown to massive proportions over the past 40 years, and especially since the 1980s, that we have a fundamental gridlock, with Republicans able to pass occasional tax cuts, but never able to reduce (or even signficantly slow the growth) of federal spending, and Democrats (and sadly, many, if not most congressional Republicans) able to | Read More »
The Five Deaths of the Republican Party Since 1958
By: A_Texan (Diary) | May 11th at 01:38 PM |
Both the conservative cause and the Republican Party had a lousy election. But it’s not just a setback, we are told, but the beginning of the end, if not the end already. We’ve lost young people, we’re not diverse enough, too extreme, etc., so we might as well pack up our silly conservative literature and go home. Republicans, Time Magazine recently explained, are an “endangered | Read More »
The Five Deaths of the Republican Party (just in the past 50 years)
By: A_Texan (Diary) | May 10th at 11:15 PM |
Both the conservative cause and the Republican Party had a lousy election. But it’s not just a setback, we are told, but the beginning of the end, if not the end already. We’ve lost young people, we’re not diverse enough, too extreme, etc., so we might as well pack up our silly conservative literature and go home. Republicans, Time Magazine recently explained, are an “endangered | Read More »
Reagan is “finished as a large political power in the country.”
By: A_Texan (Diary) | May 7th at 12:32 PM |
So said Time Magazine in a sober August 1976 report, after Reagan lost the nomination after his selection of a moderate Pennsylvanian as a proposed running-mate, which supposed sell-out cost him conservative support but gained him no moderate support. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918244-3,00.html Anytime you hear that something (especially the party, the conservative cause, or a favorite candidate) is finished, it’s always good to consult history, especially Reagan’s history. | Read More »