Historic Republican Victories for Congress go completely Un-Reported

by Eric Dondero

On Tuesday, Bob Turner won a seat in Congress in a New York District with a Democrat to Republican registration of 5 to 1. The seat had not been held by a Republican since 1923. To add even greater irony, and juiciness to the story, this was the famous Anthony Weiner seat.

In Nevada, Mark Amodei beat an attractive, well-funded, and highly-touted female Democrat candidate to win a congressional seat in Harry Reid's backyard.

A deuce for the GOP!

Arguably, the two special election victories could be seen as the biggest political stories of the year. But both the left media and the left-libertarian media (Reason, Cato.org, LewRockwell.com, Radley Balko, Nolan Chart, Daily Paul, Humble Libertarian, LP.org, ect...) completely ignored the story.

As did MSNBC's "award-winning" Journalist Rachel Maddow.

From NewsBusters "Maddow Can't Bear the Horror, the Horror of GOP House Victories in NY, Nevada":

What did Maddow focus on last night instead of those bellwether special elections? She interviewed Harvard professor, author and professional scold Elizabeth Warren about her challenge to GOP Senator Scott Brown. Then she chatted with former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell about Republicans pushing a plan to apportion electoral votes in the state by congressional district. Following that Maddow spoke with JournoList refugee Spencer Ackerman on alleged anti-Muslim bias in FBI and police training.

Then came the week-old news of a neo-Nazi being sentenced in Washington state for an attempted bombing along the Martin Luther King parade route in Spokane last January, and the tale of two Kentucky brothers creating the website "Shermageddon" -- a play on the expected traffic nightmare of "Carmageddon" in California two months ago -- after the Sherman Minton Bridge linking Kentucky and Indiana was closed due to structural damage.

Left-libertarians, and Far leftists engaging in selective reporting of top political stories to fit their agenda.

Who would have ever thunk it?

Photo h/t AmericanPower.com

It's "Socialism"; Americans "tired of Political Correctness"

From the New York Times Magazine interview, Sept. 15:

“Look, when all the answers emanate from Washington, D.C., one size fits all, whether it’s education policy or whether it’s health care policy, that is, on its face, socialism,” Mr. Perry told Time’s Richard Stengel and Mark Halperin.

In 2009, Mr. Perry told a Republican group in Texas that the Obama administration is “hell bent on taking America towards a socialist country.” This year, as he faces charges from his rivals for the Republican nomination that his positions are too extreme to win the general election, Mr. Perry said he will not change the way he speaks to appeal to the nation as a whole.

He also refused to back down from his characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.”

“American citizens are just tired of this political correctness and politicians who are tiptoeing around important issues.

RickPerry.org

From Eric Dondero:

The Ben Nelson seat in Nebraska moving into the GOP column, a potential GOP pick-up in Wisconsin, and now this:

Via Race42012.com:

Quinnipiac Virginia 2012 Senatorial Survey

•George Allen 45% (42%)
•Tim Kaine 44% (43%)

Note - Allen still needs to win the GOP primary against two strong Republican contenders.

Editor's comment - Made all the more sweet given that Kaine is the immediate past chair of the DNC.

"government spending cuts in a recession is unwise"

Newspaper in Kansas, Staff Editorial from the Winfield Daily Courrier "Tea Party economics?" Sept. 16:

The Tea Party is having an impact beyond its numbers.

Its cry for smaller government and more liberty resonates with many Americans.

But let’s admit something.

The Tea Party’s economics are nuts.

First of all, calling for government spending cuts in a recession is unwise.

That call makes sense for the long term, but it can only cost jobs in the short term.

Secondly, blaming regulations for the recession is nonsense.

Almost all the same regulations we have today were in place during the booming 1990s and the recovery after 9/11.

The financial crisis of 2008, if anything, came about because of inadequate regulation.

Thirdly, the idea that a president or a governor gets credit — or blame — for prosperity or lack of it is politics, not economics.

Ours is an economy of cycles.

The Libertarian Tea Party mantra that less government somehow makes more private sector jobs ignores this basic reality.

Center-Right parties finish ahead in Norway locals

by Clifford F. Thies

With 99 percent of the vote counted, it looks as though the Social Democrats and their coalition partners have won a narrow victory, 189 sets to 186, and will be replacing the center-right government that has ruled in that country for ten years. The center-right bloc had been trailing by 6 points in polls as recently as two weeks ago, made a dramatic come back but still fell 0.6 points short in the popular vote and were hurt in the allocation of seats by the failure of the Christian Democrats to cross the threshold for representation. As prognosticated by this site, the Danish Liberal Party edged out the Social Democrats as the largest party. But, there appears no way for the Liberals to assemble a majority coalition.

In local elections in Norway, the center-right parties finished 8 points ahead of the center-left parties, an improvement of 3 points from their margin in local elections in 2007. Given that the center-right parties won more popular votes than the center-right in the most recent parliamentary election, and only failed to win a majority of the seats due to a quirk in the country's election law, the center-right is looking to the next parliamentary election with some anticipation.

From Eric Dondero:

We have been following libertarian/Anti-Islamist hero Fred Grandy here at LR since his firing earlier this year from WMAL - Baltimore radio for statements on-air critical of Radical Islam.

Now a new development on another front. Grandy is scheduled to speak to the Montgomery County Republican Women's Club on September 24. But some local elected officials are going on record in opposition to his speech.

Maryland Juice reports "Montgomery Democrats Issue Letter Condemning Local GOP Extremist Speaker":

Today, a number of Democratic officials issued a letter condemning the Montgomery County GOP. Their letter, which appears below, is due to appear in tomorrow's Gazette and is signed by Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, Senate Majority Leader Rob Garagiola, House Majority Leader Kumar Barve, and a number of state and county officials:

We have learned that the Montgomery County Republican Party is hosting an event in Chevy Chase on September 24 featuring former actor and former Congressman Fred Grandy as the featured speaker. Grandy will ostensibly be speaking about the topic of “Islamic Extremism”.

Fred Grandy is a former actor and former Congressman who has been an active leader in the nationwide movement to incite bigotry against American Muslims. Usually this is done under the guise of "Anti-terrorism", "Counter-Jihad" or "Fighting Islamic Extremism". In reality, these labels are often thinly-veiled excuses to spread lies about American Muslims and incite mistrust against them by claiming they are a threat to America, they are trying to implement "Creeping Sharia" and they are seeking worldwide domination.

On their WMAL radio show, Fred Grandy & his wife Catherine have repeatedly referred to Muslim people as "Sharia Compliant" and found it necessary to "warn" others that Muslims work in Government. This radio show was recently cancelled allegedly because of their anti-Muslim prejudice.

So-called “Anti-Sharia” bills have been introduced in numerous state capitals. Such legislation and accompanying rhetoric have been criticized as attacks on religious liberties or attempts to stigmatize American Muslims by a broad spectrum of organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Agudah, the Orthodox Union, American Jewish Committee, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Fighting terrorism of all kinds is an important endeavor. But this cannot be used as an excuse to vilify an entire religion. It is inappropriate for the Montgomery County Republican party to be hosting an anti-Muslim speaker. Montgomery County is home to thousands of people of all races and religions. Divisive rhetoric of the kind Fred Grandy is known for has no place in Montgomery County or in our civic discourse.

Signed,

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett
Maryland State Senate Majority Leader Rob Garagiola
Maryland House of Delegates Majority Leader Kumar Barve

Maryland State Senator Richard Madaleno
Maryland State Senator Roger Manno

Maryland State Delegate Sam Arora
Maryland State Delegate Alfred Carr
Maryland State Delegate Bill Frick
Maryland State Delegate James Gilchrist
Maryland State Delegate Benjamin Kramer
Maryland State Delegate Eric Luedtke
Maryland State Delegate Ana Gutierrez
Maryland State Delegate Tom Hucker
Maryland State Delegate Aruna Miller
Maryland State Delegate Heather Mizeur
Maryland State Delegate Kirill Reznik
Maryland State Delegate Shane Robinson
Maryland State Delegate Craig Zucker

Montgomery County Councilman Craig Rice
Montgomery County Councilman Hans Riemer
Montgomery County Councilman George Leventhal
Montgomery County Councilman Marc Elrich

Editor's comment "GOP extremists" we wear that label proudly here at LR, and fully support Rep. Grandy.

From Eric Dondero:

This one is making the rounds on various conservative blogs. (Notably, libertarian sites have completely ignored it.)

Its got 300,000 views so far. If you hadn't seen it yet, it's well worth the 3 minute investment. Perhaps the best parody YouTube video produced on the right in months.

"He's solid... I like what he says"

From Eric Dondero:

During one of his early campaigns for congress in the mid-1990s, Ron Paul was famously asked by a local news reporter about his favorite type of music. In true medical doctor form, he answered, "elevator music."

Now, an icon of the genre appears to be returning the favor.

Barry Manilow quoted in a recent Daily Caller interview:

“I like him. I like what he says, I do. I like what he says. I think he’s solid,” said Manilow, who confirmed to TheDC in an interview at the Capitol on Thursday that he contributed to Paul’s last campaign for president.

“I agree with just about everything he says. What can I tell you?” Manilow added.

Willie Nelson for Johnson; Gene Simmons for Perry; Ted Nugent cautiously supporting his "dear friend" Rick

Musical artists have been slow so far to back Republican presidential candidates. However, two notables include Willie Nelson who issued a press release two months ago expressing his support for Gary Johnson's policy program, and Gene Simmons of KISS who tweeted his backing of Rick Perry for President.

Interestingly, Ted Nugent a self-described "dear friend" of Rick Perry, is keeping his distance from the campaign, worried that he might be a bit too radical and outspoken which might cause troubles for the governor's image.

From the Houston Chronicle "Ted Nugent says Rick Perry is a dear friend — but might not want his endorsement" Sept. 7:

“If I’m not given an authorized position in the campaign [it’s] because I’m too divisive,” Nugent told Billboard.com “I don’t know if I’ll get a stamp of approval because I am so volatile and because the line in the sand in a political campaign can be so ambiguous — and I’m anything but.”

Nugent told Billboard.com that his involvement with campaign efforts could potentially “scare away” some voters. In 2007, Nugent stirred controversy while performing at the inaugural ball celebrating Perry’s gubernatorial win where he donned a Confederate flag t-shirt and shouted offensive remarks during the ceremony.

SPECIAL LR GUEST ARTICLE

by Jacob Asplund,

Political discourse often breaks down because of incompatible or ambiguous definitions. Words like left, right, conservative, progressive, mainstream, extreme, centrist and moderate have different meanings to different people. A wide variety of political maps have been created to try to reduce these ambiguities and facilitate productive dialogue. The Asplund Chart improves on these previous attempts.

Here's a brief summary of the Asplund Chart. By their very nature, the two national parties favor centralized decision-making within their own party. The Republican Party is represented by the area below the red line and the Democratic Party is represented by the area below the blue line. Ideological conservatism is the area above the yellow line. Social conservatism is farther to the right on the chart while institutional conservatism (constitutionalism/free markets) is closer to the top. Similarly for ideological progressives and liberals, located above the green line, farther left indicates a more transformational philosophy while proximity to the top represents an emphasis on civil liberties and personal autonomy. The swing voters, centrists and nonparticipants in the middle are neither strongly ideological nor strongly partisan. These boundaries are dynamically maintained in roughly the same position over time as politicians, parties and ideologies adapt to changing circumstances.

Mapping major political factions on the political landscape helps to clarify observed political dynamics. Common political activities have a clear graphical meaning in the Asplund Chart. The rhetorical positions of Republican and Democratic politicians are close to the red and blue points on the chart. The party platforms are developed to maximize the appeal of politicians to the left or right half of the political spectrum. Republican run on a small government, free market and socially conservative platform while Democrats run on a platform of civil liberties, social safety net and multiculturalism. The infighting between conservatives, establishment (or mainstream) Republicans and RINOs is generally along the three divisions within the Republican area of the chart. Similar rifts within the Democratic Party regularly surface during political debates.

The history of third party futility can be explained by the strong ideological disputes that prevent conservative-leaning independents, libertarians and left-leaning independents from working together. If these groups could coalesce, it would have to be around the smaller government, ideologically neutral position represented by the gray point. Third parties that are strongly ideological cannot draw enough independents from the middle or the other side and end up slitting the vote within their half of the political landscape. Only by completely replacing the major party on their side of the spectrum has a third party ever succeed. The Tea Party movement is attempting to unseat moderates and some establishment Republicans and to vote in conservative Republicans and right-leaning independents without fracturing the Republican Party. A similar, though less successful, attempt was made by progressives within the Democratic Party in the mid-to-late 2000s.

When legislating and governing, the rhetoric and policies of both parties moves toward the black point on the chart. This is the point of moderate, bipartisan compromise between the national parties. These compromises almost always anger both the conservative and progressive base, since the only thing leaders and elites of both parties can agree about is expanding the size and scope of the federal government. Tactical political battles between insiders then determine who gets to manage the resulting bureaucracy. The main tactic in these insider political disputes, triangulation, is simply maintaining political unity within one party while causing the other party to split at either the moderate/establishment or establishment/ideologue boundary. These dynamics lead to the continually expanding federal government we see today and de Tocqueville noticed almost 200 years ago.

The other dynamic that the Asplund Chart captures is political marginalization. Conservatives are derided as reactionaries, Tea Partiers as neo-confederates, libertarians as anarchists, liberals as hippies, progressives as revolutionaries. By highlighting more extreme members and ignoring the reasonable ones, political insiders push each of these factions outside the mainstream. Republican and Democratic leaders are regularly denounced as (from left to right) communists, socialists, statists, fascists, dictators, corporatists, oligarchs and fundamentalists. They insulate themselves from these labels by adopting the language of moderation and centrism, if not the practice.

Having a shared map of politics helps foster rational dialogue, even between people who fundamentally disagree about policy preferences. Hopefully the Asplund Chart can prove useful in that regard.

cobsblog.blogspot.com

by Eric Dondero

Another example of the hypocrisy of so-called libertarian policy wonks. They brillantly defend free market policies espoused by Republicans, but just cannot bring themselves to praise the very people who are making the proposals. That might be seen as too partisan you see.

From Mike Tanner, syndicated column by Gannett, "At least Ponzi didn't force people to enroll" Sept. 15:

Despite this, Social Security faces more than $20 trillion in future unfunded liabilities. That means payroll taxes would have to be hiked by nearly 50 percent, or the equivalent in other taxes, to keep the program solvent.

Social Security can also cut benefits. Under current law, if nothing changes, a 30-year-old worker today can expect to receive just 76 percent of the benefits that he has been promised. That will be far less than the amount of money he could have had if he had been able to invest his Social Security taxes privately. In fact, many young workers will be lucky if they receive back as much in benefits as they pay into the system.

Unlike Charles Ponzi's original Ponzi scheme, Social Security will never go broke as long as the government can force people to pay more taxes and accept fewer benefits. But does that make Social Security better than a Ponzi scheme - or worse?

In the entire 12-paragraph piece, Tanner did not mention Rick Perry one single time.

Back in 2005, when President Bush famously proclaimed that he was going to use some of his "political capital" fresh off a big victory over John Kerry, to push Social Security reform, libertarians similarly stayed away from defending his proposals. The irony was that Bush got his proposal straight from the Cato Institute. When Bush was attacked severely by the liberal media for including a proposal for partial privatization, libertarians, including those at Cato, were nowhere's to be found. It proved yet again that policy wonker libertarians more often than not are completely clueless when it comes to real world politics.

From Cliff Thies:

AttackWatch.com is a website sponsored by the Obama campaign. It's a creepy-looking website obsessed with conspiracy and Truther-mentality. It asks people to submit the latest "attacks" on President Obama, so they can counter with "the Truth."

Some latest posts:

Somebody at the Department of Labor keeps reporting 9 percent unemployment. Aren't they supposed to be working for us?

Fox News is saying the stock market is falling. Not that I ever listen to them.

The company on the other side of town uses non-union scab labor. Why don't you guys search the place for contraband or something?

I got Rick Perry's confidential college transcripts. How can I get them to you?

The Census Bureau just said the number of people without health insurance has gone up. How could this be when we passed Health Care?

You have to tell the people, it doesn't matter that the Democrat lost in that election in New York City. It was just a bunch of ignorant and greedy Jews.

My parents smoke funny cigarettes when they think I'm asleep. How can I report this to the police.

From Eric Dondero:

55 electoral votes. The closest state in electoral vote count is Texas with 34, followed by New York with 31. And now the Democrat bastion of the left coast may be in play.

From the SacBee "Field Poll: Californians sour on Obama":

Even in heavily Democratic California, President Barack Obama's job approval rating has plummeted among voters, largely on his handling of the economy, according to a new Field Poll.

Though Obama is strongly favored to win California in his re-election bid next year, the poll suggests many Democrats may vote for him only begrudgingly, and it is yet another indication of weakening support nationwide.

The Field Poll has him at just 46% job approval. That's a dramatic drop from the June approval numbers of 56%.

Obama's decline has been quick and widespread... Since June, his rating has suffered double-digit percentage drops among Democrats, nonpartisans, Central Valley residents, men, African Americans, Asian Americans and voters over 65.

Also of interest, Field reports that Asians in California are the one group that has shifted on Obama most dramatically, with a 36% decline. Asian-Americans now support him just 48% to 34%.

Editor's comment - Of course, even if Obama squeeks by in California, a close win could have enormous ramifications for downticket GOP races.

Image credit - edjoin.com and flckr.com Asian American Republicans