Travis Childers (MS-1) is not one of the “MUST GO” congressmen targeted by MMX FLEX. The reason … he voted against cap-and-trade and Obamacare in 2009. However, this should not save him in 2010. To borrow a statement from Mo Brooks (running for AL-5th):

“His vote for [Speaker Nancy Pelosi] has rendered almost every other vote [Travis Childers] has cast meaningless because his vote for Speaker predetermined the outcome of almost every other vote he has cast or will cast. … You can’t be a conservative and vote to empower Nancy Pelosi, [Democratic Rep.] Barney Frank and everyone else of their political persuasion.”

Especially in MS-1, which is a heavily conservative district … voting for McCain by a 25-point margin in 2008.

The local GOP is fired up about taking back this seat … especially after Childer’s vote for the economic stimulus package. Three high-profile candidates facing off for the GOP nomination are state Sen. Alan Nunnelee, former Eupora Mayor Henry Ross, and Fox News political commentator and conservative author Angela McGlowan.

Alan Nunnelee, who bills himself as the “true conservative,” has a strong base of support, receiving financial support from Minority Leader John Boehner, NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, and Governor Haley Barbour. With views like this, we aren’t surprised:

I believe that if you allow individuals, families and small businesses to keep more of their hard earned money they will create the stimulus that our economy needs without placing a huge burden of debt on our children and grandchildren.

While I believe Government should be limited, it does have a role – it can create an environment (through regulatory and tax policy) where small businesses, which are the engine of American job growth, can thrive.

Henry Ross, a retired Naval Reserve Commander and former mayor of Eupora recently announced his candidacy and intention to restore the conservative pillars of American society:

“I want to fight to restore the pillars of faith, family, and freedom on which the founders established this nation. These pillars have provided a strong foundation, but today they are in danger. If any one of them falls, we’ll lose our country. We need conservative fighters, who are willing to pay a political price, if necessary, who will do whatever it takes, to restore the pillars of American society.”

Angela McGowen, former Fox News commentator, conservative activist and author of “Bamboozled: How Americans Are Being Exploited by the Lies of the Liberal Agenda,” is getting a lot of positive attention after her recent announcement. We’re not surprised after hearing her stirring speeches in front of tea-party crowds over the past several months. However, Angela’s supporters may take a second look after listening to her candid views on the 2nd Amendment.

MMX FLEX is impressed with all three candidates (maybe not McGowen’s 2nd Amendment stance) and believes that the time has come for the voters of MS-1 to take a vote away from Pelosi.

Get the latest information on 2010 congressional races at www.mmxflex.com.

In case you haven’t heard … President Obama’s new budget includes a big increase for the Smithsonian Institution. The museum complex will receive a record-breaking $797.4 million in 2010. Apparently, $761.4 million in 2009 just wasn’t enough. With so much of our money going here, it got us thinking – is the Smithsonian Institute fair and balanced?

To answer to this question, we visited the popular Portraits of the Presidents exhibit at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in downtown Washington and snapped a few pictures. The pictures speak for themselves, and the cliche “one picture is worth a thousand words” definitely applies.

According to the Smithsonian:

“The presidency has been a major focus of American political life … presidential portraits have from the outset attracted popular interest. … It is no surprise, then, that presidential portraiture has been a major collecting concern at the National Portrait Gallery ever since it opened its doors in 1968. … In the selection of portraits on view here, some are more sophisticated and striking [might those be the Democrat presidents??] than others [hmmm … Republican presidents]; some are quite rare or altogether unique; some are calculated to impress us with their gravity while others are warmly intimate. ….”

Really? Here is what we saw.

President Clinton

It is easy to see why the recently unveiled President Clinton portrait has been generating a lot of attention lately. The portrait is quite “striking” … occupying nearly an entire wall from floor to ceiling!

Presidents Bush 41 and 43

Comparison of Presidents Bush and Clinton

President Reagan

A portrait of President Reagan is standard size and hangs alone on a wall that adjoins the Clinton wall (apologies for the blurry photo).

Comparison of Presidents Reagan and Clinton

President Clinton’s portrait is on the far left (no pun intended) side of the photo.

President Carter

A portrait of President Carter, like Clinton, occupies nearly an entire wall from floor to ceiling.

President Nixon

A portrait of President Nixon hangs on the opposite side of the Carter wall. The Nixon portrait is quite small (we were unable to find a smaller presidential portrait in the gallery) and dimly lit. Probably just a coincidence … Or maybe this is what they meant by “warmly intimate.”

Comparison of Presidents Nixon and Carter

The portraits of Presidents Carter and Nixon hang on opposite sides of the same wall.

President Kennedy

A portrait of President Kennedy, like Presidents Clinton and Carter, occupies nearly an entire wall from floor to ceiling. The Kennedy portrait is brightly lit even though it is located just a few feet from the Nixon portrait.

President Eisenhower

A portrait of President Eisenhower is standard size, like fellow Republicans Bush and Reagan, and shares a wall.

Comparison of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy

So is the Portraits of the Presidents exhibit at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery fair and balanced?  You be the judge.

www.mmxflex.com

Today would have been best selling author and visionary Ayn Rand’s 105th birthday.  Ayn is perceived by some as “the most important communicator of conservative ideas to the America people.”

Ayn viewed government as having three specific and limited tasks: (1) to defend the nation from foreign enemies, (2) to police the nation against crime, and (3) to enforce voluntary contracts between free parties.  So it is not difficult to see why she is more popular today than ever before given the recent power grab by our federal government (e.g., the stimulus plan, bank bailout program, cap-and-trade, and obamacare).

Her most famous novels, Atlas Shrugged (which parodied FDR’s support for things like collective bargaining and wage and price controls during the Great Depression) and The Fountainhead, have reappeared on best seller lists and are selling at record levels.  Plus, she is a cult hero at Tea Party rallies across the country – where countless people carry handmade signs asking: “Who is John Galt?“  John Galt is NOT one of our 50 “Must Go” Congressmen.  Instead, he is the character in Atlas Shrugged who personifies capitalist idealism.

In memory of Ayn Rand, please take a minute to visit the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)), a nonprofit organization headquartered in Irvine, California, which works to introduce people to Ayn Rand’s novels, to support scholarship and research based on her ideas, and to promote the principles of reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism to the widest possible audience.

www.mmxflex.com

Sanford Bishop:  The Georgia Lap Dog

Georgia’s 2nd District is “represented” by “Must Go” Congressman Sanford Bishop, a 9-term self-identified conservative Democrat and member of the “Blue Dog” Coalition.  Georgians may love their Bulldogs and even put up with an occasional Blue Dog…but that affection does not transfer to lap dogs … especially lap dogs (like Bishop) who voted for the radical Obama and Pelosi agenda. 

Bishop voted party-line for the Stimulus, Cap-and-Trade, and Obamacare!  According to the Washington Post, Bishop voted with the majority of his Democratic colleagues a whopping 97.7 percent of the time.  The number of congressmen with a more liberal record can be counted on one hand.  Oh yeah, and don’t count Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank … he actually has a more conservative voting record than Bishop! 

So how can anyone believe Bishop when he says: 

“My vote doesn’t belong to Nancy Pelosi and it doesn’t belong to Barack Obama. It belongs to the people in the 2nd District of Georgia.”

BROKEN RECORD in North Carolina !!!

Bob is another politician who says he is a pro-business Democrat.  However, voting for cap-and-trade legislation is anti-business.  It causes energy rationing, leading to higher prices and ultimately fewer jobs in North Carolina.

According to the Heritage Foundation, GDP loss from cap and trade alone would be $161 billion in 2020, which means a loss of $1,870 per household per year.  Under that scenario, the average monthly energy bill for a North Carolina family would double. 

Barack Obama even agrees:

Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates ‘would necessarily skyrocket’ .. they (energy providers) would have to retrofit their operations.  That will cost money.  They will pass that money on to consumers.

Spotlight on Georgia’s 2nd District

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Georgia’s 2nd District is “represented” by “Must Go” Congressman Sanford Bishop, a 9-term self-identified conservative Democrat and member of the “Blue Dog” Coalition. Georgians may love their Bulldogs and even put up with an occasional Blue Dog…but that affection does not transfer to lap dogs … especially lap dogs (like Bishop) who voted for the radical Obama and Pelosi agenda.

Bishop voted party-line for the Stimulus, Cap-and-Trade, and Obamacare! According to the Washington Post, Bishop voted with the majority of his Democratic colleagues a whopping 97.7 percent of the time. The number of congressmen with a more liberal record can be counted on one hand.  Oh yeah, and don’t count Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank … he actually has a more conservative voting record than Bishop!

So how can anyone believe Bishop when he says:

“My vote doesn’t belong to Nancy Pelosi and it doesn’t belong to Barack Obama. It belongs to the people in the 2nd District of Georgia.”

Merle Black, a political science professor at Atlanta’s Emory University, said a final vote on health care would be a defining moment for Bishop if he backed a plan with Obama’s criteria in it – “He’ll basically be seen as an Obama liberal in that district. This could be the most crucial vote he casts.”

We shall see in November … Let’s hope that the voters in GA-2^nd ignore Bishop’s rhetoric this time and hold him accountable for his voting record.

Georgia State Representative Mike Keown is challenging Bishop. Mike is a former mayor of Coolidge and currently serves as the vice chairman of the Special Rules committee in the Georgia House. He also serves on the Education, Health and Human Services, and Natural Resources and Environmental committees. Please visit his website to learn more about him (he rides a motorcycle, drives a dirt track race car on Saturday nights, has a permit to carry a concealed weapon ….)

This race should be fiercely competitive throughout the year … Stay tuned.

Sir Isaac Newton famously said: “What goes up must come down.”  While he was referring to an apple falling from a tree, the same principle should apply to the political fortune of his namesake Isaac Newton “Ike” Skelton IV in 2010.

Ike’s been in Washington for a long, long time.  34 years.  However, his time in Washington should be up in November.

You see, Ike (“Must Go” Congressman) recently voted for both the failed stimulus plan (where are the jobs, Ike?) and cap & trade. This can’t be popular in a district that gave Obama 38% of its votes (and voted for Bush over Gore and Kerry almost 2-1).

David Cole, Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party agrees: “Skelton is no longer the conservative he once claimed to be. Instead, he has become more partisan, more liberal, and more out-of-touch with the people he represents…it is easier for Skelton to say ‘yes’ to Nancy Pelosi in Washington, DC, than to do what is best for his constituents in Missouri.”

Nevertheless, Ike’s camp will no-doubt attempt to spin him as a conservative-independent “delivering for the people of Missouri.” Heck, they may even drag out some outdated newspaper headlines, such as this one from the Kansas City Star on August 1, 1996:  Skelton fires back that he is a conservative and points out that Congressional Quarterly recently rated him the most conservative of the non-Southern Democrats in the House.

The trouble with such spin is that – in the “Show Me State” – Ike’s recent voting record is all the people in his district need to see in order to send a new representative to Congress in 2010. 

Two Republicans aiming to unseat this “Must Go” Congressman are Bill Stouffer (current state senator) and Vicky Hartzler (former state representative).  The primary election is on August 3rd.

Both are campaigning on Ike’s role in advancing the Pelosi-Obama agenda.

Since Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker… he has voted with her 95% of the time…That does not represent the 4th Congressional district. – Bill Stouffer.

Ike [Skelton] has had the cover, for many years, of either a Republican President or a Republican Congress and he hasn’t had the opportunity to vote on some of these radical procedures and plans that are now being put forth by [U.S. House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, and [U.S. Senate Leader] Harry Reid, and President Obama … Now that those radical proposals are on the table we’re seeing that he’s not standing for up us. – Vicky Hartzler

MMX FLEX is impressed with both candidates and believes that the time has come for the voters of Missouri’s 4th Congressional district to SPIKE IKE and send somebody to Washington that represents Missouri, not Pelosi.

www.mmxflex.com