On Todd Akin, the alternative media, and the call to leadership

    We’ve seen it happen time and again. An earnest neophyte graduate student publishes her first scientific paper identifying evidence of a newly identified correlation or trend. Maybe it’s another compound that can be associated with increased cancer risk, or a newly observed environmental impact of some common industrial byproduct. A few weeks later some newspaper that’s looking to fill white space reports on the study | Read More »

    Eliminating fraud, waste and abuse

    So the claim is that the hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare savings will come from elimination of “fraud, waste and abuse.” And the Obama team will point to things like the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) and the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Account (HCFAC). They’ve got the small examples of savings in fraud and abuse, but clearly | Read More »

    A word on guns and gun nuts…

    In the discussion of gun laws that has followed the unfortunate events in Colorado, we once again see a lack of general appreciation for the founders’ reasoning that underlies our second amendment. On the one side, we have folks who think that the second amendment is about hunting deer and maybe having a handgun for personal protection. On the other hand, we have folks who | Read More »

    Tags:

    Newt should have hit the lobbying charge out of the park yesterday

    Newt should have been able to hit another home run on that exchange about lobbying last night. Here is a very simple formula for setting the record straight. 1. Mitt either doesn’t know what lobbying is all about or is taking advantage of the fact that most of the public doesn’t know what lobbying is all about. 2. Newt’s company was engaged in teaching its | Read More »

    South Carolina and Florida: What’s the Story?

    Heading into South Carolina and Florida, the media is pushing the narrative that those primaries will allow Romney to seal his victory. For the remaining viable challengers to have any chance, this narrative needs to change. According to RCP, the SC and FL polling currently looks like: SC: 31.3 Romney, 20.7 Santorum, 19.7 Gingrich, 10.7 Paul, 5.0 Perry, 2.3 Huntsman FL: 33.0 Romney, 25.0 Gingrich, | Read More »

    Tags:

    Hope for the future? Not all kids are as ignorant as the Occupy crowd.

    We’re always hearing about the failures of modern civics education. Well here are a couple of anecdotes to give you a glimmer of hope. On Thursday evening, I brought home Chinese food. My five-year-old daughter’s fortune cookie read “Go above and beyond your duty. You will benefit from it.” She smiled and said “that’s what we learned about for Veteran’s Day.” She also told us | Read More »

    My take away from the debate: perhaps the ideal presidency

    Perhaps we need an administration in which Newt develops the ideas and works the mechanics but Cain keeps the administration grounded and sells the vision to the masses. It’s too bad they’re both from Georgia.

    The O’Donnellfication of Herman Cain?

    There is one line of political attack in this primary election that all RedStaters should unite against — the poison pill.  The Democrats control the Senate right now because Republicans allowed Republicans to wage and tolerate the waging of poison pill attacks.  If any of us allow our strategy to be that of making a particular opponent “damaged goods,” trusting that disqualification will follow in | Read More »

    Can Herman Cain fire anyone?

    The sexual harassment story has now diverged into two distinct lines.  Aside from the reports of the various allegations, there is this notion that the past week should serve as some sort of exemplar of Cain’s ability to handle a crisis.  It is the latter storyline that is clearly the most damaging. It is clear that Cain’s opponents have seized upon him at the most | Read More »

    Obamacare: A Back-Door Origination Clause Argument

    The Constitution states that “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”  In the months following the passage of Obamacare, many have remarked that while the “revenue bill” may have improperly originated in the Senate, the courts have established the precedent that most origination clause arguments are out-of-bounds | Read More »

    Tags:

    A******s on our side are a big part of our problem

    So today I’m out chopping wood, and I see some people cutting through the yard. They are back in the woods a bit, and I figure they are just the neighbor’s kids. A bit later I hear what sounds like a shot. Then I walk around the front and find their van. These jerks were cutting through what is obviously a residential area and hunting | Read More »

    Winning the Election vs. Winning the Polls: Possible vs. Impossible

    Many of us have been carefully watching for McCain to move ahead in this year’s national polling. However, we must realize that based on the turnout assumptions underlying all of these polls, it is nearly impossible for McCain to move ahead. That does not mean that the election is out of reach. This year’s polling assumes a turnout model that, if it were to hold | Read More »

    Judgment Day

    If Obama wins, America is simply receiving the leader she deserves. Those of us who choose Obama’s neo-Communist vision do not deserve to live in a free society. If Obama wins, Republicans are simply receiving a well-deserved judgment. If only took two years for the 1994 new GOP majority to turn to incumbency protection games and corruption. How many good people were pushed out? How | Read More »

    Tags: ,

    Nick kids’ vote: 51-49 Obama

    Only 51-49? What is going on here? Kerry won four years ago, 56-44.

    Tags: ,

    Beyond the illusion, McCain wins in Boston

    Recently, a group of Harvard political science students conducted a mock election for local 7th graders in the Boston area. The only catch was that the two candidates were identified only by a description of their positions on various issues. Their names were unveiled only after the votes had been counted. The results: the 7th graders were in tears. McCain won a solid victory. There | Read More »

    Tags: ,

    Obama’s 95% Scam

    Obama’s “tax cut for 95% of working families” is baselined to the tax rate after the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. I.e. taxes will be raised, then he will lower them partially and selectively. It is kind of like when a store marks up all of its prices, then has a big sale. What a rip-off!

    Tags: , ,

    Draft Joe Wurzelbacher

    Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the plumber can articulate free market principles better than most GOP politicians. We need a movement to draft him as a candidate, either for Congress or for state office in Ohio.

    Oh the beauty of large institutions!

    History will remember this era as a time in which many of our largest and most well-established institutions were crushed by their own weight. Complaints that a cop is tasering a kid, that a priest is making moves on the altar boys or that those with fiduciary responsibility are stealing from the kitty all seem to lead to similar frustration. Ethics rules and investigatory procedures | Read More »

    Tags:

    What don’t you know and how will you learn it?

    The last question of Tuesday’s debate was submitted by Peggy Silva, a high school teacher from Amherst, New Hampshire. The question was “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” According to today’s Nashua Telegraph: Tom Brokaw is a friend of Silva’s daughter’s father-in-law, who e-mailed Brokaw right away to tell him who asked the final question. Small world? Silva also has been | Read More »

    Choosing an effective Ayers message

    I am worried that the GOP is on the verge of misplaying the Ayers issue. This is something that should be a big liability for Obama. However, many of the persuadable voters out there want to believe in a political messiah who will bring us back to the mythical fat dumb and happy 90′s. People are looking for a reason to give Obama a pass | Read More »