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RINOs Archive

Wednesday

14

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

Olympia Snowe Needs To Get An Answering Machine

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

Big government supporter Olympia Snowe provided cover yesterday for ongoing liberal attempts at a health-care takeover with her committee vote for the Baucus bill.  She summed up this betrayal of the American people by saying, “when history calls, history calls.”

If the erosion of personal freedom and the destruction of prosperity are what history asks for, then next time it calls, hang up.

Wednesday

23

September 2009

0

COMMENTS

NPR’s Crocodile Tears

Written by , Posted in Election Time, Liberty & Limited Government, Media Bias

An NPR piece spotlights Rep. Inglis, a South Carolina Republican facing primary competition after being targeted as a RINO.  I don’t know much about Inglis, so I’m not going to get into the merits of whether or not he is a RINO.  But I do want to point out the utter shallowness and one-sided nature of NPR’s analysis.

The article repeatedly points out the risks of targeting moderate GOPers.  If the RINOs are ousted, the party will be too small to compete, they claim.  There is a basis for this concern, as obviously there must be a balancing act between enforcement of principles and inclusion.  But they present a false choice when they make it seem as if Republicans can either have a smaller, more principled party or a larger one which includes a few squishy moderates.   There are in fact other possibilities.  Disillusioned conservatives that stayed home the last few elections could be persuaded to return if the party more consistently represents its stated principles.  Likewise, if they continue to stray too far from them, even more might abandon the GOP.

What they completely ignore while fretting about the costs of ousting a few RINOs is that the party has already shrunk, and it did it by being too much like the Democrats.  Republicans didn’t lose the House, the Senate and the White House by purging the party of moderates, they lost it by being moderate – i.e. by proposing big government solutions to things like education and prescription drugs, and just generally spending like there was no tomorrow.

But the public is fed up, and there is a strong anti-incumbent, anti-government movement brewing.  If the Republicans are able to capture this movement, a feat that is not at all certain, it is likely to work to their benefit.  But in order to do so, it will necessarily mean replacing some old Washington incumbents with new, more principled blood.

Friday

8

May 2009

0

COMMENTS

Federal Government Bullies California On Behalf Of Unions

Written by , Posted in Labor Unions

The union investment in Barack Obama continues to pay dividends:

The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.

Schwarzenegger’s office was advised this week by federal health officials that the wage reduction, which will save California $74 million, violates provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Failure to revoke the scheduled wage cut before it takes effect July 1 could cost California $6.8 billion in stimulus money, according to state officials.

This kind of federal government bullying against the states was entirely predictable, and is why many governors said “thanks, but no thanks” to federal dollars.  Gov. Schwarzenegger was not one of them.  In fact, he stabbed these principled conservatives in the back when he defended the porkulus and joked that if they didn’t want the money, he would take it for them.

Who’s laughing now, Arnold?

Wednesday

1

April 2009

0

COMMENTS

Holder Refuses To Adhere To Constitution

Written by , Posted in Liberty & Limited Government

Left-wing advocates of granting Washington DC a seat in Congress were heartened by the election of president Obama, a strong supporter of such a move.  The problem?  It’s blatantly unconstitutional.

Article 1, Section 2 says, “The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.”  It further states, “No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.”

There is no ambiguity here.  States are represented in the House.  The District of Columbia is not a state.  It cannot be represented in the House.  Moreover, no individual meets the qualifications above to represent D.C., as one cannot reside in the state in which one is chosen if one is not chosen by a state.

But this isn’t stopping Attorney General Eric Holder.  When his own lawyers at the Justice Department concluded that proposed legislation to grant a House seat to D.C. would be unconstitutional, Holder basically told them to shove off.  He then took the time-honored, corrupt approach of asking the same question of different people until he got the answer he wanted.  This is disgraceful.

But the disgrace does not all belong to the administration.  Some RINO’s and misguided Republicans are on the wrong side of this issue. The support of Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has been essentially bought with the inclusion of an extra seat for Utah.  He and many others from the state felt that Utah should have received an additional seat in the last census, so they are willing to support a blatantly unconstitutional measure in exchange for this redress.  But any seat would only last 2 years until the next census and apportionment, where Utah would likely have gained the seat anyway.

Others, such as Susan Collins, support the measure despite her own misgivings over its constitutionality.  Her reasoning for supporting it?  “I believed then, as I do now, that this question is best resolved by the courts and not by this committee.” This attitude reflects a gross negligence of her duties, as she is as equally bound to uphold the Constitution as the courts. That was the view of James Madison when he addressed the first Congress.  He said, “[I]t is incontrovertibly of as much importance to this branch of the Government as to any other, that the Constitution should be preserved entire.”

Whether it be Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Orrin Hatch or Susan Collins, all members of our government have an equal duty to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Passing blatantly unconstitutional laws, with the attitude of “let the courts sort it out,” is a repugnant abdication of that responsibility.

Tuesday

29

July 2008

0

COMMENTS

Porker Indicted

Written by , Posted in Waste & Government Reform

The longest serving Republican Senator in history has been indicted by a federal grand jury.

In a press conference, acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich said that according to the indictment, Stevens is being charged with seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. The indictment alleges that Stevens did not, as he is required to do, report gifts he received from Veco Corp., which included $250,000 of materials and labor related to the renovation of his home in Girdwood.

Ted Stevens is well known for his love of bacon and ability to direct it toward his home state of Alaska.  Even the imminent threat of a corruption investigation couldn’t slow down his rampant porking.

“He’s at the head of the pack,” Ellis said. “His ability to bring home the bacon to Alaska is legendary and he doesn’t make any bones about doing that.”

Stevens gets his buying power from his staying power. With nearly four decades in the Senate, now at age 83, he’s the longest-serving Republican senator in history.

Less than three months after the FBI searched his Alaska home in a bribery and public corruption probe, Stevens proved he hasn’t lost an ounce of clout. He added an incredible $215 million in earmarks to the defense bill – more than any other senator.

Ted Stevens epitomized the failures of the republican party to govern responsibly.  Let’s hope his eventual replacement brings with him more respect for the taxpayer.

Saturday

26

July 2008

0

COMMENTS

More Anecdotal Evidence On Why Republicanism Is In Decline

Written by , Posted in The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

Remember, this bill was signed by a man who was a featured speaker at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use.

Under the new law, trans fats, long linked to health problems, must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged foods will be exempt.

New York City adopted a similar ban in 2006 — it became fully effective on July 1 — and Philadelphia, Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County, Md., have done so as well.

Vocal do-gooders have once again conspired to deprive citizens of their freedom to choose.  You are simply not trusted to make the correct decisions in your own life, even if the weighting of risk versus reward is entirely subjective. That this charge was enabled, if not actually led by, a prominent republican illustrates the sad state of our national affairs.