An Illustration of What is Wrong With House GOP Conference

The RSC budget was defeated earlier today, but the good news is that it garnered the support of 136 Republicans, 56% of the conference.  Or did it?  Take a look at this summation from The Hill of the roll call vote and ask yourselves what we are supposed to think about the leadership within the conference:

Members rejected the RSC proposal in a 136-285 vote in which 136 Republicans supported it and 104 Republicans opposed it. That’s more support than the RSC budget received last year, when 119 Republicans favored it and 120 opposed it.

The increase was due mostly to the decision by Democrats to vote against it rather than to vote “present,” as they did last year. In 2011, most Democrats voted “present” at the last minute, causing a chaotic scene in which many Republicans were forced to oppose the proposal lest it pass over Ryan’s budget, which was preferred by leadership.House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) appeared to thwart the “vote present” strategy this year by holding down the GOP vote totals until after the electronic vote had closed. Once the clock had ticked down, at least ten GOP members voting against the amendment switched to “yes.”

At the very least, it shows that our efforts to educate Republican voters about their members’ voting records is working.  At the very worst, it means that we need to find more innovative ways to expose them as frauds.

P.S. FYI.. Adam Kinzinger voted no, while Manzullo voted yes – and he wasn’t one of the vote switchers.  Just sayin’

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Obama sells out American values and interests in Russia

I applaud House Speaker John Boehner for his letter to President Barack Obama on Russia. I also applaud him for holding fire on Obama while he was abroad at an important security summit. It much more clearly articulated Obama’s shocking behavior with respect to Russia than any other criticism to date:

The Russian government has not lived up to its obligations to support the world community in reining in the rogue nations of Iran, Syria, and North Korea.  On the contrary, Russia has at times offered support for these dangerous regimes.  And it is increasingly evident that Russia is intent on expanding its boundaries and power through hostile acts – including invading a neighboring American ally.

But there’s a broader point here. When Obama told Medvedev to be patient until after the election, he was abandoning our Ambassador and Obama’s friend, our national security and that of our allies, human rights in Syria, and our respect for democratic values. Indeed, he was abandoning his own dignity and that of our country.

What do I mean?

A month ago, two things happened with respect to Russia that should force us to fundamentally reevaluate our relationship with the country. Just a month ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Russia “despicable” for defending the butcher of civilians in Syria at the UN Security Council. And the state run media compared our ambassador, Obama’s long-time ally, to a pedophile.

This ambassador isn’t just some diplomat. McFaul was an Obama advisor during his campaign and a member of the National Security Council. This was a personal insult to our Ambassador, the President of the United States, and the United States itself. Instead of defending his own friend and Ambassador, Obama goes supine and offers Russia concessions.

In fact Putin’s whole election campaign was a nationalist attack on the United States. The attack on McFaul was part of a strategy. So after months of attacking the United States and our ambassador, to win an election, Obama offers concessions.

These weren’t just any elections. These are to a government whose end is in sight after astounding levels of fraud. In the December elections, Putin’s party, United Russia engaged in “ frequent procedural violations and instances of apparent manipulation, including several serious indications of ballot-box stuffing,” according to the OSCE. Hundreds of thousands of protesters entered the streets to object to the debasement of democracy. About Putin’s own election, the OSCE said, “There was no real competition and abuse of government resources ensured that the ultimate winner of the election was never in doubt.”

Obama’s offer of “flexibility” was made in spite of personal insults,  insults to our country, and insults to our values. Hopefully Americans will realize the consequences of this foreign policy that takes neither ourselves nor our allies seriously.

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Open Thread: SEIU’s Astroturf Paid $20 To Protest For ObamaCare Outside SCOTUS

As you watch the video below [via SEIU Monitor], you can tell the astroturf protesters bused in by the SEIU yesterday to protest outside the Supreme Court for ObamaCare hold some very deep convictions. In fact, their convictions run so deep, it seems all they care about is the $20 given to them in brown envelopes by their union handlers.

Ironically, as SEIU Monitor points out, back when ObamaCare was being debated in 2009, the SEIU published “Your Guide to Corporate Astroturfing: Lobbyist-Run Groups Orchestrating…”

Of course, unions and hypocrisy are somewhat synonymous, aren’t they?

Related:

Consider this an open thread.

__________________

“Socialism has no place in the hearts of those who would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.” Samuel Gompers, American Federation of Labor, 1918

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The post-apocalyptic future of Obamacare?

At least, "post-apocalyptic" from the Left's point of view.

So I watched this clip of James Carville furiously spinning the suddenly-more-plausible possibility of Obamacare going down utterly in flames as being the most awesome thing ever for Democrats:

By the way: I should ask Erick how he manages to avoid pointing and laughing at performances like this. I don’t know that I could manage the same self-control.

Anyway, Allahpundit watched the clip, too, and he’s got a legitimate question about whether Carville is correct and that this would be ultimately good for Democrats. The answer is… if it is, not in the sense that everybody is meaning. Except maybe James Carville: he’s clever enough to give out the wrong reasoning in public.

The basic argument being presented here is, as far as I can tell, that killing Obamacare will at least rally the base, bringing them back to the polls just in time to recreate the energy and dedication that got elected Barack Obama in 2008. The President will go out and convince the American people that the Supreme Court slapping down Obamacare means that it’s now the Republicans’ problem to solve. That, and the judicious choosing and pushing of individually popular features of Obamacare will put the Democrats back over the top, and did you catch all the hidden assumptions that I loaded into this paragraph?

Let’s unpack ‘em:

First: note that casual equation of ‘rally the base’ with ‘recreate the 2008 Obama voter demographic.’ Not really justified. Obama won in 2008 because he won independents 52/44 and moderates 60/39. This recent CNN poll suggests the problem then for the Democrats; in that poll independents oppose Obamacare 41/53, moderates only support it 52/41… and liberals only 63/26. This means that ‘rallying the base’ is a prerequisite not for ‘winning the election,’ but rather for ‘avoiding losing the election by a catastrophic it not apocalyptic margin.’Second: the President. Convincing people. Or anything. This would be President Obama, right? The joke has long been among the VRWC that one of best things that can be done to further one of our policy positions is to con Barack Obama into making a speech about it: the man has no judgement and no demonstrated ability to learn from his mistakes. And he’s notoriously bad at convincing people to go into a direction that those people, in fact, do not wish to go.Third: that because some individual features of Obamacare are popular, arguing that they’ll go away with the larger law will be a powerful driver of votes. Because, after all, noting that stopped the Republicans from gaining 63 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate during the 2010 election cycle – no, wait, in point of fact it did not. Largely because the assertion can be fairly easily counter-argued, and in fact will be: if an individual feature is so popular, let the legislature go back and enact it. The true issue is the incredibly complex and disastrous-to-pernicious interrelated clauses, additions, add-ons, out-and-out bribes, and other detritus that was all swept up in one big messy pile and called Obamacare.

So… if Obamacare going down in flames isn’t good for letting Democrats win, then how will its destruction actually be good for Democrats? Easy: its destruction will wreck the political careers of both Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi (I wish that it’d also wreck Harry Reid’s career, but the Senate’s funny that way. Besides, Reid’s very possibly not running for another term in 2016 anyway). Because when you think about it; Obamacare’s pretty much the only thing that the Democrats have done that they even remotely want to talk about. It’s not that Obamacare is great – it’s actually awful – but everything else that they’ve done has been worse. When and if that goes away, the way that Obamacare goes away will hopefully make it clear in the process that the next Democratic Speaker of the House (and there will be one eventually: just not in 2012) should be someone who is nota San Franciscan liberal who treats the Speakership as if it was a crude, Stone Age club…

But I malign our primitive ancestors with that comparison: they worked with the best that they had.  It’s too frightening to even think that, when it comes to Democrats, so did Nancy Pelosi.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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Constitutionality And Thoughtcrime

I appreciate it when Dahlia Lithwick writes more often for Slate Magazine. It’s hard arguing that Liberals lack any fundamental gravamen or intellectual perspicacity without compelling, in print, visual evidence. She entitled her 22 March missive “It’s Not About the Law, Stupid…. Next week’s health care argument before the Supreme Court is all about optics, politics, and public opinion.” In so doing, she just summed up her entire contribution as a legal analyst for Slate Magazine. Mention the word irony to Dahlia Lithwick, and she’s liable to tell you to iron your own [expletive] dress shirt. She is woman, and you can hear her pseudo-sapient roar!

Lithwick seems particularly miffed that anyone would imply that Individual Mandates could run afoul with the boring, stodgy and out-of-date United States Constitution. She displays her Aristotelian flair for reasoning below.

That the law is constitutional is best illustrated by the fact that—until recently—the Obama administration expended almost no energy defending it. Back when the bill passed Nancy Pelosi famously reacted to questions about its constitutionality with the words, “Are you serious?”

She then offers up a properly shamanistic bow to the Commerce Clause Cargo Cult. She mentioned the one paragraph of the Constitution still taught in the modern law school without a compulsory condescending sneer.

The law is a completely valid exercise of Congress’ Commerce Clause power, and all the conservative longing for the good old days of the pre-New Deal courts won’t put us back in those days as if by magic.

So get with the pogram, oops, I mean program you silly conservatives. Who could possibly believe ObamaCare was a constitutional overreach? Lithwick continues with an ongoing appeal to authority. You see such and such a “CONSERVATIVE” jurist grumbled that ObamaCare probably drags itself coughing and sputtering across the finish line as constitutional. The science is settled you ignorant Tea-Bagger Hobbits. Go back to Middle-Earth and let the grown-ups like Nancy Pelosi administer the laws that they voted for without comprehending or even entirely reading.

Other liberals appeal to the boogeyman. Michael Kinsley sets us up to play The Race Card if the Supreme Court fails to properly obey the liberal Zeitgeist.

Ever since Wickard v. Filburn (1942), with only a couple of minor exceptions, the courts have upheld the use of federal power under the Commerce Clause, which gives the federal government the authority to “regulate commerce.” Even the 1964 Civil Rights Act is considered constitutional as a regulation of commerce.….Maybe the federal government’s authority under the Commerce Clause is much narrower. Maybe that authority doesn’t extend to requiring individual citizens to have health insurance or pay a fine. But if so, it is not only the future of Obamacare that will suddenly be shaky. Every piece of legislation for about the last 70 years that rested on the Commerce Clause will suddenly be up for grabs. This includes the Civil Rights Act. It includes laws protecting the environment and consumers.

Having failed to mention the Klan or Senator Bilbo once, Kinsley had to throw !Civil Rights! into his scare piece twice. Everything the government has ever done through The Commerce Clause could now be open to challenge. I hear they paid for D-Day and The Inchon Landing with the Commerce Clause. Repeal ObamaCare today, and your little grandkids will be licking lead paint chips off their Chinese toys tomorrow! Your are instructed to be very afraid.

Or maybe, just maybe, at least three of The USSC justices leaning towards complete ObamaCare nullification want there to be the equivalent of a CAT-5 legal feke storm. These jurists may have had it up to here with the government’s casual and ongoing usurpations that have been justified by the dexterous extension of the Commerce Clause. It almost seems to some Conservatives that the Commerce Clause has become a Trojan horse that is used to steadily and precipitously undermine the right of the average American to possess and enjoy their personal property.*

What I think happened is exactly what Speaker Pelosi was describing. “We have to pass the bill to find out what is in it.” Now the Supreme Court has this detestable sick man of postmodern constitutional overreach on the diagnosis table. Having seen what is in it; they are trying to decide whether they should chain-saw out a few of the more obvious cancer tumors or put it out of its own convoluted misery.

So Lithwick and Kinsley roll to disbelieve that the US Supreme Court could ever doubt the constitutionality of The Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act. Who could possibly be that crazy? This court case, like the 2010 midterm election, is all just an illusion that will go away. The practical people will reassert control, the Commerce Clause holds sway over all and the ignorant hicks will just shut up and go back to sleep. It could happen. Let’s just hope it couldn’t happen here in America.

*-It’s almost like these people are crazy enough to view their JDs as something other than a license to steal without consequence. How whack-job is that?!

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American Majority Action Unveils Killer GOTV Digital Technology

As a movement, we have enjoyed unparalleled growth over the past few decades, particularly, over the past few years with the advent of the Tea Party.  We have more conservative thinkers, writers, talk radio hosts, and organizations than Ronald Reagan would have ever imagined.  Most importantly, we have more passion and grassroots activism than ever.  However, the most direct way to affect conservative change is to win elections; both primary and general.  Writers, thinkers, and speakers help galvanize and unify the conservative movement, but we cannot win elections on superior ideas and arguments alone.

The seminal ingredient to electoral success has not changed; it all boils down to turning out the vote and establishing an efficient and effective ground game to connect with the most consequential voters in a given district.  What has changed is electronic communication.  The only way to run an effective campaign in this era of mobile devices and social media is to create the perfect synergy between the venues of communication, the voter information, and the GOTV operation.

Let’s face it; the left has been drubbing us in the race to harness technology for GOTV.  The entire Google establishment is married to the Obama machine.  In fact, they have been outgunning us in GOTV in general.  We crushed the Democrats in the war of ideas and the political narrative in 2010, yet we dramatically underperformed our historic potential for success due to a lopsided GOTV disadvantage.  We underperformed our polling numbers in key states because of the superior ground game of the leftist union machine.  We will never fully succeed if we only seek superior ideas and passion, especially when we are already at a disadvantage in terms of time, treasure, and talent.

This is where American Majority comes into play.  As Erick always says, American Majority and AM Action are among the few organizations that he wholeheartedly endorses without any reservations.  They think of all the key elements of affecting generational change from the local school board on up to statewide office – and implement them with overwhelming effectiveness. And most importantly, in this era of intra-fighting between Tea Party organizations and personal egos, they are true team players.

Today, American Majority Action unveiled “Gravity,” the most advanced campaign management software and voter database system on the market.  Developed together with Political Gravity TM , a leader in conservative political software technology, this all-in-one tool will allow Tea Party activists and conservative campaigns to communicate with and target the exact voters that are needed to win elections.  The most unique aspect of this is that they are giving out free subscriptions to any authentic local Tea Party organization.  National organizations and candidates can subscribe for a dramatically reduced rate.  Freedom Works counts among the earliest prominent subscribers.

All of the information and the voter surveys were built from scratch to conform to the needs of conservative organizations and candidates.  This was developed by conservatives for conservatives and will not be shared with anyone else.

Specifically, Gravity users can walk through neighborhoods with tablets or iPhones (and Droids) and have access to the most up-to-date information on any voter within the region, and can filter it based on any data point; from policy issues to income to voting history.  Not only does Gravity display an instant Heat Mapping capability, it filters the heat map by voter intensity.  Then, when the targeted audience is identified, Gravity provides the activist with the best route to canvass those voters.  So if you’re canvassing for a Tea Party candidate against an establishment Republican in a low-turnout primary, you can instantly see all of the information about the most intense Republican primary voters and have access to the most efficient canvassing plan.  In states that have early voting, you can track through the heat map which voters (filtered by any data point) have not voted yet.  The entire operation can be monitored by the campaign managers with one bird’s eye view through the lens of this App.

There are numerous other features embedded into this one-stop shop that would normally cost campaigns thousands of dollars per item without the seamless connectivity, that Gravity provides for a rate that even a candidate for local office can afford.  It contains everything from hard ID’ing micro-targeting technology, VOIP technology, to automatic direct mailing and even a function to file FEC reportings – all in one App.  You can literally manage every aspect of a campaign from Gravity.  American Majority Action is working on some new secret capabilities that will be added to the system and out in the field for this cycle.  They will all be shared with Tea Party organizations that share their intrepid vision of limited government.

This is what it looks like to take conservatism to the next level.  This is winning.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

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