All Republican leaders must resign

by Richard Viguerie

Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal-media politicians are replaced mostly with principled conservatives in the mold of Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

The result is that the party’s “brand” has become a negative, to an extent greater than in the Watergate era, perhaps worse than in the days of Herbert Hoover. The number of new Republican voters is flat while Democratic voter registration is skyrocketing. Contributions to GOP candidates and Republican parties are way off, while donations to Democrats are setting records.

In primaries, votes for Republican candidates at all levels are running far behind the Democrats. And in recent special elections, the party lost longheld congressional seats in Illinois, in Louisiana, and, yesterday, in Mississippi – all in districts carried overwhelmingly by President Bush. A single election can be a fluke, but when Republicans lose three seemingly safe seats in a row, disaster is looming.

The hard work of the last 50 years by millions of conservative campaign workers, donors, candidates, writers, intellectuals, and activists has been trashed. The conservative movement has been set back 10-20 years – possibly even permanently – by politicians consumed by power, including but certainly not limited to Denny Hastert, Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, party chairman Mike Duncan, and their friends. Some deserve more of the blame than others, but they are all part of a party Establishment that has brought the party down.

For things to change, for conservatives to be justified in giving our contributions, our volunteer efforts, our energy, and votes to the GOP, the party must clean house. The party leadership should resign immediately. We must replace the Big Government/Big Business/Establishment Republicans with principled conservatives, most of them young. By “principled conservatives,” I mean leaders who will stand up to the liberals and fight for freedom and traditional values. Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal-media politicians are replaced mostly with principled conservations in the mold of Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Voters almost always reject a pale imitation in favor of the real thing. The Democrats have firm principled beliefs. What motivates most Republican leaders? Nothing except a craving for power. What do Republicans offer voters? Nothing except “Elect us because we’re not Democrats.”

To Republican leaders, I say: You turned against the principles you once espoused – conservative principles – and, in turn, conservatives and the American people have turned against you. Things will not get better until you accept responsibility, and resign. You have stayed too long. For the future of the Republican Party, for America and the cause of freedom: Go!

Commentary:
I most certainly agree. The complicity and lack of leadership on the Farm bill was the most recent and most glaring example of what is wrong with the Republican party. The Republican Party is the Democrat Lite party. Republicans have proven they can pander and spend with the best of Democrats.

Richard Viguerie, for those who may not know him, has been a powerhouse in the Republican Party since the days of Goldwater. He has been called the "funding father" of the modern conservative movement. He is the man behind the mail order fund raising effort of most conservative causes for the last fifty years. He sounds like a disgruntled Republican.

I am posting a link to his web site on my blogroll. Visit Conservative hq to learn more of the views of this principled conservative.

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How Black is Obama? Let the Hillary campaign show you.

Isn't the Hillary-Obama contest fun? I don't know the truth of this matter obviously, but it is alleged by the leftist kooks at Daily Kos that the Hillary campaign has doctored pictures of Obama to show him with a wider nose and darker complexion than he really has. Would Hillary really stoop that low to win the vote of "hard working white Americans?" Follow this link to see how they did it and read all about the controversy.

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Obama Blames Fox News For Losing White Voters

Obama, maybe there are other reasons you lost the white vote in some recent primaries. Maybe your comment about frustrated people clinging to guns and religion offended some religious gun owners. Maybe your wife's comment about being proud of America for the first time in her life had something to do with turning off patriotic middle Americans who love their country. Maybe that picture that shows you as the lone candidate on the stage who does not have his hand over his heart during the playing of the National Anthem made some middle Americans think that you do not share their values. Despite your eventual disavowal of Reverend Wright, do you think that perhaps your former pastor, who referred to America as the U.S.K.K.K.A. and said AIDS was a government created illness designed to kill Black Americans and who said "God damn America" could have turned some people off? After all, prior to disavowing him, you did call him your spiritual advisor and you did sit in the pews of his church for 20 years and contributed over $27,000 to that church.

Maybe some white Americans would simply prefer to vote for a white American just as some Blacks prefer to vote for a Black American and some females would prefer to vote for a female. Maybe they are just not that into you. You have the Blacks and the college educated elites but maybe the white middle class are just not ready to vote for a Black man who is also rated as the most liberal person in the U. S. Senate. Maybe it is because you don't have as much testosterone as Hillary Clinton. You can't put back shots of liquor and mingle in the pool hall as good as Hillary. You don't love guns and you are not a hunter. You are just not the "good ole boy" that Hillary is. Hillary is just better at playing the redneck. Maybe Hillary just knows how to pander better than you do.

When Bill Clinton got caught in a scandal, Hillary blamed his problems on a "vast right-wing conspiracy". Back when there were a lot fewer media outlets and less diversity in News reporting, Republicans used to blame a lot of their losses on the "liberal media." Fox is only one network. You still have the fawning MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN plus the quasi-news comedy shows that love you. Surely you can do better than blame your recent losses on little old Fox news network.

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The GOP at the Trough

By Robert D. Novak Monday, May 19, 2008; The Washington Post

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, 38 and having served less than five terms, did not leap over a dozen of his seniors to become the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee by bashing GOP leaders. But an angry Ryan delivered unscripted remarks on the House floor last Wednesday as the farm bill neared passage: "This bill is an absence of leadership. This bill shows we are not leading." (link)

Commentary: The story of Republican complicity and lack of leadership on the farm bill is reason for any conservative to be disgruntled and disgusted. The Farm bill is a bad bill. It raises spending by 44% above last year’s level. It contains non-farm pork spending, it subsidizing multimillionaire farmers, it increases food prices to the consumer, it undermines American leadership on trade, and puts farmers in undeveloped countries at a competitive disadvantage and keeps poor countries poor.

The Republican leadership has shown no leadership on this bill. According to Novak, President Bush has promised to veto the bill but let it be known that it would be OK if Republicans “voted their districts.” Apparently Republicans are not going to be pushed hard to sustain the veto.

In the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell is not only supporting the bill but got a provision added to the bill giving special tax breaks to horse farms in his state of Kentucky. In the House, Minority Whip Roy Blunt voted for the bill. In the House, Republicans voted for the bill 100 to 91 and in the Senate, 35 Republicans voted for it and only 13 opposed it.

When Republicans vote like Democrats, why should one care if Republicans lose elections? Maybe it is time for Republicans to take a major beating, do some major soul searching, regroup, and rediscover why they are Republicans.

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On Climate, Symbols Can Overshadow Substance

Lights-Out Event More Showy Than Practical
By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, May 17, 2008

In March of last year, the World Wildlife Fund in Australia teamed up with Leo Burnett, the multinational advertising agency that created the Marlboro Man, to come up with a new environmental campaign called Earth Hour. The idea was to get 2 million residents in Sydney to turn off all the lights in their homes for one hour. The campaign generated wide publicity, but the energy saved was small -- the equivalent of taking about five cars off the city's roads for a year.

Tension between substance and symbolism runs through the modern environmental movement. After years of conflict with climate-change deniers and a White House that has resisted mandatory efforts to address global warming, the movement has become a crusade that is partly moral statement and partly fashion statement. Earth Hour, Earth Day and the Miss Earth beauty pageant -- "saving the planet, one pageant at a time" -- generate lots of publicity, but they also tend to prompt people and companies to choose what looks good over what works. (link)

Comment: I could not have said it better. Modern environmentalism is about making a statement, not about making a difference. Consciousness has already been raised. We don’t need another Al Gore Earth Aid concert. We don’t need another self-indulgent celebrity showing us how much they care by flying their “green” car around the world so they can be seen driving “green.” We don’t need another company selling phony carbon offsets. Enough already of the “green washing.” Feel-good environmentalism and symbolism over substance brought us the ethanol mistake and the Energy Independence and Security Act 0f 2007. When are environmentalists going to get serious about supporting policies that really work instead of silly symbolic gestures?

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Obama Speaks the Truth about Gas Prices

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Paul McCartney’s Feel-good Environmentalism

From the Symbolism over Substance Department:

Former Beatle Paul McCartney has long been an outspoken advocate of environmental causes. He owns a high-end luxury, V-8 engine, top-speed-155MPH, “green” vehicle. The Lexus LS 600H is a hybrid vehicle that uses an electric motor at low speeds. McCartney recently had his environmentally friendly car flown to England from Japan on a cargo plane.
To read more click here.

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Tell Congress to Stop Subsidizing Multimillionaires with Your Money

from the American Conservative Union

Vote "NO" on the Farm Bill

In 2002, when Congress passed the last farm bill, wheat was at $2.84 a bushel. The price of wheat has risen 256% since then to $10.10. What is Congress' response in the Farm Bill of 2008? Increase subsidies for wheat! Other commodities like rice, corn, and soybeans that have seen similar price increases will see their subsidies increase or stay at the same level as 2002. At a time of rising grocery bills and runaway government spending, H.R. 2419, dubbed the Food and Energy Security Act of 2007, will increase spending by $20 billion over 10 years, continue to give subsidies to multi-millionaire farmers, and include special interest earmarks for powerful committee chairmen.

TAKE ACTION NOW. ­FILL OUT THE FORM BELOW TO CONTACT YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND URGE A "NO" VOTE ON THE FARM BILL!
WELFARE FOR MILLIONAIRES

Supporters of the Farm Bill claim they have "reformed" the subsidy program. But this bill will still allow married couples who farm and have adjusted gross income of $1.5 million to get taxpayer subsidies. Individuals who do not even farm but own the land and have incomes of $500,000 will also qualify.

H.R. 2419 also fails to reform the sugar program and actually increases government intervention to drive up sugar prices and, of course, the price of goods with sugar ingredients. To make this program even worse than it is, any excess supply of sugar, which could be available for food production, would be owned by the government and auctioned to ethanol facilities at a huge loss.

TELL YOUR LOCAL MEMBER OF CONGRESS YOU ARE FED UP WITH OUR ANTI-CONSUMER FARM POLICY AND TO VOTE "NO" ON THE FARM BILL!
A BIPARTISAN OUTRAGE

The failure to fix our nation's outdated and bloated farm policy is bipartisan. Although the Bush administration has threatened to veto this bill, leading Republicans as well as Democrats have vowed to work hard to override the expected veto. Only if they hear from their constituents will it be possible to stop this special interest steamroller.

Not only is this bill terrible policy, it is once again being used as a slush fund for special interests through earmarks. One of the worst examples is a secret provision inserted by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). It will allow the scandal-tarnished environmental group, the Nature Conservancy, to get $250 million in taxpayer money to purchase a track of land from the Plum Cree Timber Company in Montana. As is often the case with secret earmarks, this provision has nothing to do with farm policy but a way for some politicians to help some friends with your money.

YOU CAN TAKE ACTION NOW! LET CONGRESS KNOW YOU ARE WATCHING. TELL YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS TO VOTE"NO" ON THE FARM BILL!

Comment: I have posted on this before. I share the outrage of the American Conservative Union. Our agriculture policy is just crazy. We subsidize millionaire farmers, drive up food prices, and undermine agriculture in developing countries. Please click here . This will take you to the ACU site. Fill out the form to let your views be known, or better yet write your congressman a letter.

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Hooray for High Gas Prices

What exhortations to love Mother Nature and change your evil ways couldn’t do, what feel-good environmentalist legislation couldn’t do, higher prices are doing. I know it is surprising to some folks but markets and prices really do work. Americans are conserving and substituting, new technologies are becoming more affordable, people are changing their energy habits, and smaller homes and smaller cars are becoming more desirable.

Just listen to what people around you are saying about rising gas prices or read your local paper and it is hard to escape the fact that high prices are causing beneficial results. Here is a sampling of recent news stories:

· Gas cost deflates prices on used SUVs, USA Today 5/9/08. The price of big used SUVs has dropped 17% from a year ago.

· Planes Fly more, emit less greenhouse gas, USA Today 5/9/2008. Airlines have taken many steps to curb fuel use, such as adding better navigational equipment, modifying wings for improved aerodynamics. From 2000 to 2006 fuel efficiency increased 22%.

· Gas cost squeezes daily life, USA Today 5/9/2008. People are changing their habits. They are combining errands. “February was the forth consecutive month in which miles driven in the USA declined, the first time since 1979 that that has occurred.”

· Developer bets that home buyers trade space for energy efficiency, The Tennessean 5/12/2008. Developer Randy Chastain has been a developer in the Nashville market for 30 years. Cheep materials, cheep land, and cheep gas led to bigger and bigger houses with little thought to energy efficiency, says Mr. Chastain. He believes higher energy costs are changing the market. Now, he is building homes that are 10% smaller than what he was building and considerably more energy efficient. He is building LEED certified homes.

· Demand for gas eases slightly as more carpool. The Tennessean 5/1/2008. This article notes that carpooling is increasing. It interviews several people who have started carpooling.

This is not to suggest that we are wining the war for energy independence or reducing global warming. We are not. But, for the first time, we are headed in the right direction. For a while, it seemed that the demand for energy was inelastic. However, it seems that just shy of the $4.00 per gallon mark is proving to be the price point at which people will conserve and change behavior.

Perhaps more important than the price of gas is the expectation that gas prices will stay high. According to the Gallup poll, in August 2003 only 33% of the public believed high fuel prices would last. The latest Gallup poll shows 78% believe high gas prices are here to stay. If people expect prices to stay high, it will influence where they live, how they work, and the car they drive.

Unfortunately, pandering politicians of both parties are promising the public they will do something about high gas prices. Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain have advocated removing the federal gas tax for the summer. Some smooth talking, lying politicians, such as Nancy Pelosi, have to gall to advocate lower gas prices and combating global warming in the same sentence.

We do not need to reverse the progress that is being made on the energy and global warming front. What needs to happen in order to break the American oil addiction is for there to be still higher gas prices and a reinforcement of the idea that high prices are here to stay. To expedite what the market is already doing, a revenue-neutral carbon tax could put us on the right track to begin winning the war for energy independence and reversing global warming.

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Mortgage Loan Executives Charged with Fraud

Two former executives of a large mortgage company were arrested this week and charged with fraud.

Lieb Printer, a former officer of Olympia Mortgage Corporation is charged with scheming to defraud Fannie Mae of more than $44 million. Here is how it worked: Normally when a loan is refinanced the existing mortgage is paid off. Printer was refinancing loans but instead of paying off the existing loan he was pocketing the money. To hide his actions he did a variety of things such as altering the credit report of the borrower so the old loan which was supposed to show a zero balance, simply did not appear on the customers credit report. He did this on 257 loans! The new loans were backed by Fannie Mae and sold to Credit Suisse First Boston.

Barry Goldstein, also formerly of Olympia, is charged with creating dummy loan histories for the borrowers so they looked much less risky on paper than they really were. Mr. Goldstein is also accused of directing his employees to create dummy loan histories for borrowers. If convicted they could each get 30-year prison sentences.

If found guilty I hope they both get the book thrown at them. They deserve to sit in prison for the next 30 years. There are a lot of factors contributing to the mortgage crisis we are facing and one of those factors is fraud and corruption. Unfortunately this story is not getting very much attention. The above story I read on page 15 of the Financial Times, a publication that I only rarely read. I was traveling this past week and picked up a copy at the hotel at which I was staying.

I often wonder why some stories get very little coverage and other things that I think are much less important get massive coverage. In my opinion this story should be front-page news in bold headlines, and the trial should be followed on the evening news. Unfortunately, those who do not read the financial press will probably never know this story.

I would like to see fear stuck in the heart of every crooked loan officer in America. While it takes an FBI investigation or a large commitment on the part of an attorney general to uncover fraud of this magnitude, as a Loss Mitigation and Mortgage Default Housing Counselor, I see incidents of fraud on a routine bases.

Some of the fraud that occurs is admittedly hard to prove but anyone who works in this field knows that it occurs. It is not uncommon that loan officers falsify income or employment history to make the borrower more attractive to a lender than they are in reality. I have had several clients tell me that they thought they were getting one loan and then on the day of closing were switched to a different product. I have had clients tell me that they were urged to sign blank loan application documents and never realized their income had been massively inflated. I have seen very suspicious, apparently inflated, appraisals. Document forgery is not uncommon.

I am not so sure we need new laws. The laws already on the books simply need to be enforced. I would like to see Congress appropriate funding to Legal Aid organizations to provide legal assistance to those low-income clients who have been victims of fraud. Our local Legal Aid does a great job but they are so overworked that they can only take the most egregious of cases.

I would like to see more FBI investigation and federal Justice Department prosecution of mortgage fraud and I would like to see more funding of state Attorney General's offices to prosecute these types of cases. And, I wish we had a press that considered the stories of mortgage fraud and abuse to be newsworthy. The message should be load and clear that if you commit mortgage fraud, you go to jail.

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Show Your Support for Your Candidate!

Get involved in this presidential campaign! Let your voice be heard! Show the world how you feel. If you support the policies and character of John McCain, please drive with your headlights on during the day. If you support Obama or Hillary, please drive with your headlights off at night.

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How to be Poor.

There are some people who are born with handicaps and disadvantages and must struggle to overcome their disadvantages, but for most people they have to do really stupid things to stay poor. It is hard to stay poor in America. Having worked with poor people most of my life, I have observed some of the things that people do to achieve poverty. Here is a list. If you want to be poor, these are some of the things you can do.

Become a single mom. This is almost guaranteed to make you poor. A single mother with one child earning $22,000 year is poor. A father, mother and child with a family income of $44,000 are not so poor.

Have children early. Have your children before you finish school or before you are established in a career.

Father children and don’t marry the mother. If you do this then you will have child support payments. If you are determined to avoid child support, you can work in the underground economy and constantly change jobs.

Drop out of high school.

Enroll in college, take out lots of student loans, but don’t graduate. This way, you will have big loans to repay, but won’t have the benefit of the earning power of a college graduate.

Become a criminal. Most criminals are poor. Most drug dealers with their momma. Once you become a criminal it will be very difficult to ever get a good job.

Become a drug addict or an alcoholic.

Take this job and shove it. If your boss is unappreciative, a customer is rude, or you get tired of working the third shift, just walk off the job. It is important to do this without having another job lined up and don’t give a two-weeks notice.

Become satisfied in your dead-end job, stop looking for new opportunities, stop leaning new skills, and stop growing.

Smoke cigarettes, drink beer, smoke dope and play the lottery. If you do this in moderation, it may not make you poor. You may need to do a lot of it.

Don’t learn delayed gratification. Live for today. You want it, you deserve it, get it now.

If you are short of money, use payday lenders. With a payday lender you can borrow $200 and on payday pay back $230. If you don’t have the $230, you can pay $30 and borrow the money for two more weeks, this is only 780% interest. Worrying about the interest rate is something middle class and rich people do.

Don’t take advantage of your employer’s matched retirement plan. If your employer will match up to 3% of your income in a retirement saving plan, don’t fall for it. If he matches your 3% that is a 100% return, and since that is money you do not pay taxes on, that is another 25% return, and if your money and your employers money earns 5% that is a 10% return for you for a total of 135% return. If you do this you will find you are becoming middle class.

Don’t put money in an IRA every year. If you do, that is money you won’t get to pay taxes on. Anyway tell yourself you need it now. You can’t afford to save.

Use the Rent-a-center. If you need a washer and dryer, don’t buy a reconditioned used set for $150; pay $25 a week to rent a new set from the rent-a-center. Also, you can rent nice furniture and a TV and VCR and stereo.

When you do your taxes, get a “rapid refund”. Sure you have waited all year for your money, but you look forward to your refund. Why wait another two weeks when you can have it now? If your refund is $2000 and if cost you $100 to get the rapid refund, since you are only borrowing the money for two weeks that is a 130% interest rate. Don’t worry about the interest rate and don’t wait two more weeks for your money. That is the way middle class and rich people think. You want it now; get it.

Buy a new car. Did you know that most millionaires have never bought a new car? A new car is a rapidly depreciating asset, but a new car smells so good. You deserve it. It will make you happy. Do it!

Always rent; never buy a home. A home is an appreciating asset and the biggest wealth builder for most people.

Value your government handout. Don’t earn too much money or you may lose your section 8 or public housing, food stamps, and Medicaid.

Think like a poor person. Be envious and jealous of people who have more than you do. Keep telling your self that life is unfair and that if other people did not have so much you would have more.

Don’t get “above your raising.” If you are black, don’t let yourself ever be accused of “acting white”. Don’t let anyone ever accuse you of acting like you are better than they are.

Have lots of poor friends. They will make sure you do the things and have the attitudes that keep you poor.

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