Is the HHS Director Illegally Campaigning … Again?

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  May 17th at 09:23 PM  | 

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has run afoul of the law again, urging companies whose future she controls to donate to do work her agency lacks the funds to do. Congress has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. Secretary Sebelius has been shaking down the industry she controls, raising funds for Enroll America, an alliance of community organizers and health sector businesses. This is not | Read More »

Keynesian Economics: Still Failing After All These Years

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  May 9th at 09:45 PM  | 

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t post it here until I noticed that Michael Tanner of The Cato Institute agreed. Keynesianism is still not working.

End the Obamacare Slush Fund

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  April 24th at 01:31 PM  | 

As Dean Clancy wrote last week at FreedomWorks, the House today will take up the Helping Sick Americans Now Act (H.R.1549). The bill cuts a slush fund and uses the money to subsidize insurance for the sickest Americans. Congress should pass it. Contrary to various claims, this bill neither cripples Obamacare implementation nor fixes Obamacare. It merely forces the Obamacare train wreck to get by on its | Read More »

Not This

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  April 22nd at 07:50 PM  | 

The Senate immigration bill proposed by the so-called Gang of 8 claims to enforce border security and reform immigration. But in the end it is just an amnesty plan that adds another layer of difficulty to the process of legal immigration. The United States needs real immigration reform, and Republicans need to show they’re on the side of immigrants. Something has to be done. Not | Read More »

Boston Massacre Conspiracy Theorists at Salon

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  April 17th at 12:58 PM  | 

Guilt peddler and emotional trainwreck David Sirota took to the pages of Salon on Tuesday to write about the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing through the lens of “white male privilege,” the only such device he is apparently able to wield. His is an outlook born of conspiracy theory, the fantasy of class collusion and secret alliances. So it is unsurprising that most people | Read More »

Arkansas Statists Fail to Expand Obamacare

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  April 16th at 04:41 AM  | 

Conservatives in the Arkansas legislature held firm against funding what the statists in Arkansas are calling a “private option” for Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. It’s really just a different way to expand socialized medicine. The legislature should not fund this boondoggle. Arkansas has a Democrat governor and Republican legislature. Arkansas DHS spokesperson Amy Weber told me Friday, “It really lies in the hands of our | Read More »

Polygamy Equality

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  April 3rd at 08:23 AM  | 

With Republicans and libertarians rushing headlong to fundamentally transform America’s marriage laws, I thought I’d make an observation. If marriage is no longer defined as one man and one woman, there is no chance that it will not include more than one of each, nor extend to marrying children. That’s because in reality it already does.

Attacks on SarahPAC

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  March 29th at 10:52 PM  | 

Sarah Palin must be over the target.

Outreach and Get Out The Vote

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  March 29th at 04:25 PM  | 

In developing the Growth and Opportunity Project‘s Autopsy of the 2012 election (pdf), the Republican National Committee correctly identified the reason for the party’s loss, but failed to recommend a coherent strategy to reverse it.

President Obama won by defining his opponent in a negative way, and marrying modern technology with old-fashioned boots on the ground. Republicans can do those things even better than he did, but doing so will require radically reforming the party.

Read More »

Messaging

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  March 28th at 05:13 PM  | 

The Republican National Committee’s Growth and Opportunity Project post-mortem of the 2012 election cycle covers a lot of ground in its effort to diagnose the Party’s losses. This first installment of my response covers the report broadly and particularly its prescriptions for messaging.  The RNC report categorized its recommendations in seven areas: Messaging Demographic Partners Campaign Mechanics Friends and Allies (Third Party Groups) Fundraising Campaign Finance | Read More »

Why Pat Brady Will Not Long Remain Illinois Republican Party Chair

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  March 18th at 04:55 AM  | 

The move to oust Pat Brady as head of the Illinois Republican Party has been cast as being all about gay marriage, but it isn’t so. Brady’s full-throated endorsement of same-sex marriage was just the tossed glove in a duel for the direction of the GOP in Illinois.

To Win, We Must First Admit We Lost

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  March 14th at 10:30 AM  | 

Excusing defeat is a sure way to keep losing. In the 2012 election, conservatives, libertarians, and tea party groups were outworked and outvoted by an array of forces that should have been demoralized and bitter, but instead focused on their common enemy and working together. If we want to avoid a repeat of that performance in 2014 and 2016, we must first recognize one reality:

We lost.

Read More »

As Your Friend, I Say You Will Regret This

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  February 28th at 07:59 PM  | 

Media members will regret attacking Bob Woodward for revealing, and insisting, that the sequester originated in the White House. They will regret more not realizing that a viable First Amendment requires a press in loyal opposition to the government. But even more, they will regret being the champions of reckless government spending.

How Many Demons Can Dance On the Head of a Sequester?

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  February 27th at 01:00 AM  | 

Our government is too big. The crisis of the moment, the so-called sequester, won’t do anything to change that. Our nation needs a plan to reduce government spending dramatically, rapidly, and in accordance with our needs. Until then, however, the sequester is better than nothing, and far better than any proposal to change it.

The Job Killers Insist You Hire Criminals

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  February 18th at 01:55 AM  | 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released Enforcement Guidance in April, 2012 saying that employers who rely too heavily on criminal background checks to screen potential employees may violate the Civil Rights Act. Meanwhile, the President and his economic team want to saddle employers with a minimum wage increase, which will make those with a criminal record even less attractive to hire. Making it harder to | Read More »

The Cruelty of the Minimum Wage

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  February 16th at 10:45 AM  | 

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, President Obama called for an increase in the federal minimum wage, gloating that it had been endorsed even by his vanquished moderate Republican opponent in the 2012 campaign. A minimum wage increase is not needed, and would harm those it’s supposed to help.

Are You A True Conservative?

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  February 8th at 05:11 PM  | 

The issue is not who is “true conservative” or even a plain old conservative, but who is willing to gamble his own power to achieve a result beneficial to everyone. In the power struggle between the DC Establishment and grassroots, labeling of the two sides often conceals the battle lines.  Language frames the debate, and I am still not completely comfortable with the labels “establishment” and “grassroots”. | Read More »

It’s Time To Abandon The Tea Party

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  January 31st at 11:06 AM  | 

We in the liberty movement have a choice. We can either spend our time, treasure, and energies in an attempt to rescue the “Tea Party” brand, or we can spend those limited resources combating big government, reaching out to new people, and organizing our towns and neighborhoods for social and political involvement. It’s time to abandon the “Tea Party” label, and redouble our effort to | Read More »

It’s Time for Freedom of Immigration

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  January 29th at 01:17 PM  | 

The immigration reform proposal from a bipartisan group of Senators takes reform in the wrong direction. It fails to defend our borders, expands the federal bureaucracy, and further entangles the government in economic decisions it has no business making.

Merry Christmas

By: Loren Heal (Diary)  |  December 24th at 11:31 AM  | 

Is Christmas about Christ, or is it about reindeer? Why, yes. Christmas is when Christians celebrate of the virgin birth of Jesus the Christ, Y’shua the Messiah, in a manger in Bethlehem. It’s a tale of wise men (who weren’t there) and shepherds (who were).