Note: All the material about the President's proposal to let a company in the
UAE run some of the largest ports in America (and what was he thinking?) has been moved
here.
Information about the proposed NAFTA Superhighway is
located here.
Bush
Won't Call for Special Session. From the Department of Unsurprising News comes this dispatch:
President Bush will not call Congress back into session in August to hold a vote on opening more land to oil
drilling.
Republican Energy
Fumble. [Scroll down] The plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal
lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are
huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast — putting off limits some
of the most productive areas. Alaska's oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.
The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels
and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . .
oil companies!
Republican Energy
Fumble -- II. Ask GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer what he thinks of the recent "Gang of 10"
Senate energy compromise, and his answer is short and not sweet: "I'd call it 40% tax increase,
10% energy and 50% snake oil." The Coloradan might well be irked. Republicans like
Mr. Schaffer had successfully turned this summer's political debate into a fight over domestic energy
exploration, putting antidrilling Democrats on defense.
The Five Stooges.
If you thought Republicans were no longer "The Stupid Party," then you haven't met the senators who may
have just destroyed the GOP's biggest hope this election year: the drilling issue.
Gold Medal Embarrassment. Conservatives
worry that Barack Obama may be another Jimmy Carter, but the current White House occupant is proving to be just
as dim when it comes to defending U.S. interests. In fact, even Carter did not make an error comparable
to President Bush's decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, providing fodder for the
Communist propaganda machine.
Conservatives' Anger with GOP May Be Party's
Downfall. A poll of 1,015 conservative activists and donors shows that 77 percent are either
seriously disappointed with Republican Congressional leaders or want them totally replaced. The
poll/survey also found that 54 percent of conservatives feel so abandoned by the current crop of
Congressional leaders and President Bush that they plan to reduce their contributions and/or grassroots work
for GOP candidates in the next election. And 70 percent would support a principled conservative
challenger running against an established incumbent Republican in a GOP primary.
Everything
Must Go: The American Conservative Movement, 1980-2008. Take away Samuel Alito, John
Roberts, the vibrant mid-2000s economy and his antiterrorism successes, and George W. Bush would be
viewed as a man who did as much damage to the conservative movement as [Bill] Clinton. … Bush betrayed
conservatives in countless ways; he attempted to force "big-government conservatism" down the right's
collective throat, causing conservatives to join "progressives" in scorning Bush during the course of his
second term. Bush's record-low poll numbers are the direct result of his alienation of the GOP base
through his lack of fidelity to conservative principles.
Exactly what the Gore administration would have done:
Officials say polar bears to be
protected species. The Interior Department has decided to protect the polar bear as a threatened
species because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming, officials said Wednesday [5/14/2008].
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne scheduled a news conference to announce the action. It comes a day
before a court-imposed deadline on deciding whether the bear should be put under the protection of the federal
Endangered Species Act.
Polar Bear Melodrama:
Polar bears are not the fragile, vulnerable creatures of liberal iconography. They have thrived in the
Arctic for thousands of years, both through periods when their sea-ice habitat was smaller, and larger, than
it is now. They will continue to adapt — and the Endangered Species Act can't make the slightest
difference. Such realities haven't prevented green showboaters from claiming victory after the Bush
Administration designated the polar bear as a "threatened" species yesterday [5/14/2008].
See more information
under Polar bears
and the Endangered Species Act.
Warming health report: Poor,
elderly to hurt most. Global warming will affect the health and welfare of every American, but the poor,
elderly, and children will suffer the most, according to a new White House science report released Thursday [7/17/2008].
The 284-page report, mostly written by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said every region of the country will
be hit by worse health from heat waves and drought.
Have you noticed
that Global Warming is blamed for
everything?
If The GOP Wants To
Govern Like Democrats, Why Have a Separate Party? What we're watching is the culmination of the
decade-plus deterioration of the conservative Republican brand. Put simply, no one, including base
conservatives, trusts the Republicans to govern effectively while following anything even faintly resembling
a conservative platform.
This takes the cake...
Bush
Bans Light Bulbs, Gas Guzzling Cars. President Bush signed an energy bill on Wednesday that bans
traditional incandescent light bulbs and requires automakers to produce more energy-efficient vehicles.
The bill, titled the Energy Independence and Security Act, calls for higher fuel standards for cars and light
trucks, mandates higher ethanol production and begins a phase out of incandescent light bulbs by 2012 because
they burn too much energy.
The Editor says...
Banning incandescent light bulbs is exactly what one might have expected from President Al Gore or President John
Kerry. Or Fidel Castro! What was he thinking? Has he never heard of the Tenth Amendment?
Is the environmental lobby really that powerful? More information — none of it
favorable — about Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFLs) can be found
on this page.
George W. Bush Is GOP's Bill Clinton.
George W. Bush is driving the GOP off the cliff. His mad infatuation with Mexican immigration, and his
unbelievably naïve and dangerous policies in the Middle East are causing people to leave the Republican Party
like rats off a sinking ship. … Even those who were willing to forgive Bush for taking us to war with Iraq
have no patience or mercy for his dogged determination to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, and to
merge America into a regional commercial entity with Mexico and Canada.
Endowed by their Creator. According to
WorldNetDaily's headline story on October 7, [2007,] President Bush has once again displayed his lack of
thoughtfulness with the statement that people of all religions pray to the same God. … Apparently, the President
of the United States has never thoughtfully considered the premise of our existence as a nation. The man sworn to
the greatest responsibility to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States apparently doesn't
understand the idea that it is founded upon.
Bush
prepares global warming initiative. President Bush is poised to change course and announce as
early as this week that he wants Congress to pass a bill to combat global warming, and will lay out principles
for what that should include. Specifics of the policy are still being fiercely debated, but Bush
administration officials have told Republicans in Congress that they feel pressure to act now because
they fear a coming regulatory nightmare.
President
Appears to Seek a Warming Legacy. Both at home and overseas, there are signs that the White
House — after seven years of charges that it was failing to accept and act on science pointing to
dangerous human-caused climate change — is aiming to repair its legacy on the issue. Trial
balloons are lofting and swirling.
Bush Raises
Temp on Global Warming. The last months of a presidential administration are often dangerous.
Presidents — looking to their legacies — go to desperate lengths to try to enhance their
reputations for posterity. … Just as an increasing number of scientists are finding their
courage to speak out against the global warming alarmists and just as a building body of evidence and
theories challenge the key elements of the human-centric carbon-based global warming theories, George W.
Bush takes this moment to say, in effect: "We are all global alarmists now."
Bush's Global Warming
Surrender: We're hearing some very bad things about the President's likely unconditional
surrender on global warming tomorrow [4/16/2008]. One senior source suggested that the last line of
sound defense had been breached and that "It will be very bad." I'd imagine he will request, against all
evidence from Europe that this does anything but make consumers poorer and utilities richer, a cap and trade
regime for energy utilities.
W Goes Green? Apparently, the
president is considering how to push forward his "20-in-10" plan to reduce US consumption of foreign oil by
20% in 10 years. So far that has meant a massive increase in the biofuel requirements, principally
ethanol (mostly derived from corn, soy and palm oils). Where these mandates go, plows and chainsaws
follow. So do deadly food riots and increasing unrest.
Did
someone mention ethanol?
The Case
for Ending Ethanol Subsidies: Just in time for today's Earth Day festivities, President Bush has
announced a new initiative to combat global warming. He set a goal of stopping the growth in greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions by 2025 and reducing emissions thereafter. But rather than plan for 2025 —
which is another two or three presidencies away — Bush should immediately fix his ethanol policy,
which is increasing GHG emissions and raising food prices not only in the United States but all over the world.
Bush Promotes Hillary's
Global Policies. Our national "news" programs have been preoccupied with baseball players on
steroids, but they should devote some attention to the Bush Administration's approval of a plan to put the
United Nations on steroids. Apparently looking to leave office with the blessings of the "international
community," the Bush Administration sold out American interests at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in
Bali, Indonesia, in December.
Did
someone mention Bali?
Why Is Bush Apologizing?
President Bush could not have picked a worse time to decide to soften his image. As Iran barrels towards full
nuclear capability and as positive developments in the War on Terror shine a favorable light on the Bush Doctrine,
we find the President at his most cuddly and contrite.
Bush Running Out of Red Ink? On February 4,
President Bush presented his fiscal 2009 budget plan to Congress. The budget proposes spending a record
$3.1 trillion. Last year's budget stood at $2.9 trillion in comparison. … Democrats joked that
Bush cut back on the printed copies because he ran out of red ink.
Bush makes power grab. President
Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 [2007] signed a directive that granted near dictatorial
powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president. … Translated
into layman's terms, when the president determines a national emergency has occurred, the president can declare
to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business
activities until the emergency is declared over.
The Editor says...
(1) This directive sounds somewhat Mugabe-esque.
(2) Nothing in the Constitution authorizes this action. The word emergency is not in the Constitution.
(3) I don't believe for one second that George W. Bush came up with this idea.
A
More Honest Socialism. How do you turn $5.9 billion into $200 billion overnight?
By magic. Political magic in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — due to their status as
publicly traded private companies back-stopped by taxpayer guarantees. Yesterday [3/19/2008], Fannie and
Freddie announced, alongside their chief regulator Jim Lockhart, that they would be leveraging up their
businesses in the name of riding to the rescue of the mortgage-backed securities market.
The Editor says...
When the federal government prints $200 billion in cash that didn't exist the day before, that's
the cause of inflation and the weakening dollar.
Continuation of the National
Emergency with Respect to Zimbabwe. [President Bush is extending] for one year the national
emergency with respect to the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and
other persons to undermine Zimbabwe's democratic processes or institutions.
The Editor says...
I can see how the situation in Zimbabwe should be of great
concern to our elected officials, but how does it qualify as a national emergency in this country?
I was surprised to learn recently that there are currently
14 national emergencies in effect in the
U.S.
The Next Conservatism:
Conservatism has become so weak in ideas that during the presidency of George W. Bush, the word
"conservative" could be and was applied with scant objection to policies that were starkly
anti-conservative. … If conservatism is to be re-established as an intellectual force, and
not merely a label for whatever the establishment does to its own benefit, it must first
re-awaken intellectually. We need a new conservative agenda.
The Senate Could Vote on the "Thought Crimes" Bill Soon!
Like President Clinton, President Bush now equates opposition to his policies, especially concerning the War
in Iraq and the "War on Terror," as unpatriotic, or even treasonable.
Earmarks
and the Executive: President Bush signed a massive omnibus appropriations bill
last week, calling the $550 billion monstrosity "reasonable and responsible." Leading
fiscal conservatives aren't so sure. The bill is littered with pork-barrel earmarks, which
Bush, to his credit, has denounced. But this talk needs to be followed with action.
A Trillion Here, A Trillion There.
Last week, President Bush proposed the first $3 trillion federal budget. This is just five years after
he introduced the first $2 trillion budget. To put such dizzying numbers in perspective, consider
that it took nearly two hundred years for the federal budget to pass the $1 trillion mark. […But]
even when a Republican president offers a blueprint for record federal spending, he is attacked as a
budget-slashing miser.
Bush Offers Record Budget of More than
$3 Trillion. One sign of how rapidly government spending has been growing in recent years is
the $3.1 trillion federal budget President George W. Bush introduced in February. When Bush
took office in 2001, the federal budget was under $2 trillion. "All in all, the new budget tops
off eight years of remarkably spendthrift policies by President Bush," said Chris Edwards of the Cato
Institute. "Over eight years, Bush has presided over a huge, 67 percent increase in total federal
outlays. The comparable figure for President Clinton's eight years was just 32 percent."
Get that veto pen ready...
Will McCain Oppose $845 Billion
Earmark? Some of the politicians on Capitol Hill regularly and sometimes secretly attach costly
"earmarks" to bills to benefit special interests. Since Senator John McCain says he wants to eliminate
those earmarks, he should start with the Barack Obama bill, the Global Poverty Act (S. 2344), which itself
is a vastly expanded form of earmark. It commits the U.S. to spending $845 billion to eradicate
poverty in the rest of the world.
Red
Tape Rising. To hear Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tell it, the Bush Administration is in the
pocket of corporate interests. That's a good one. A look at the recent Bush regulatory record makes
one wonder why the party's candidates aren't holding it up as a model of Democratic governance.
The President's Proposals for
Medicaid and SCHIP: One Step Forward, One Step Back. Last year, the
President took a prudent and fiscally conservative approach to reauthorizing SCHIP by
proposing an increase of $5 billion over five years. He now proposes spending four
times that amount, recommending $20 billion over five years. By 2013, spending on
SCHIP would top $46.3 billion, almost doubling its current cost. Moreover, the
proposal would dedicate $50 million in FY 2009 and $100 million in each of
the next four years for outreach. The goal, as described by the Department of
Health and Human Services, is to increase enrollment 3 percent by FY 2009 and
12 percent by FY 2012.
(Emphasis added.)
The End of Conservatism: Aside from his foreign
policy and Supreme Court appointments, conservatives find little to love about George W. Bush. His
signature domestic policies include a vast expansion of government-financed health care (prescription-drug
benefits), and increased funding for education while halfheartedly promoting vouchers and school choice.
Bush also signed into law campaign-finance reform and supported a proposed immigration bill that would have
allowed illegal aliens a path to citizenship. The Republican Congress is even worse, having indulged
in an orgy of irresponsible spending.
Everything
Must Go: The American Conservative Movement, 1980-2008. It was fun while it lasted.
The guaranteed election of a non-conservative President on November 4th represents the end of the conservative
movement in America. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain stands for Reagan principles in any way, shape,
manner or form — and after twenty years of non-conservative Presidents, it's obvious that the
Reagan era will never, ever return.
President Bush has torn the
conservative coalition asunder. The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush
administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States
to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of
every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me.
The Elephant in the Big Tent:
Having accepted the concept of the "Big Tent" a long time ago, the GOP can't excommunicate anyone from the
party. It was a dumb idea and the GOP has paid the price for it in endless philosophical drift and inept
presidential nominees. John McCain differs in degree, not kind, from the last three GOP presidential
candidates. Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., McCain: Where's the substantive difference? They are all
intellectually lame Republicans, with little to no interest in conservative political and moral philosophy.
Conservative Grief: I'm
almost out of my depression and arriving at acceptance. What do I accept? That the U.S. is just
another European country now. We are all welfare states if not outright socialist ones and our political
choices are between center-left and left-left. Time to get used to it. Moving to France won't make
much difference, whether you are Alec Baldwin or Chuck Norris.
Lack of pardon for agents
ripped. Several members of Congress derided President Bush yesterday [12/12/2007] for not
including former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean among the 29 pardons
that he issued this week.
Drug Dealers Pardoned; Border Patrol
Agents Remain in Prison. My disappointment with our current political and governmental
administration reached an all-time high this week. The reason? While U.S. Border Patrol Agents
Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are left to languish in jail for actually doing their jobs, President
Bush has opted to pardon eight (count them — eight) drug dealers.
Bush says feds
can open mail without warrant. President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to
open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant. Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after
signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations. He then issued a "signing statement"
that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and
contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.
Hillary's Voice: I don't understand
how a "Republican" President can preside over six years of mindless spending and, only after his party loses
control of Congress, demand austerity while presenting it with a $3.1 trillion budget. Things like
that make no sense to me.
Wiretap Debacle:
The Bush Administration bears much of the blame for this debacle. White House officials hoped that by
agreeing to put the wiretaps under FISA authority, they could lower the political temperature and reach an
accommodation with Congress. But no Administration has ever conceded that FISA trumps a President's
Constitutional power to place wiretaps in the name of national security. The courts have also explicitly
upheld this Presidential power. Mr. Bush was making a needless concession that Democrats have used
against him as they refuse to compromise.
Did
someone mention Domestic Surveillance?
Border checks limited to
speed traffic. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Texas have been ordered to
abbreviate national security checks at one of the nation"s busiest ports of entry to speed up travel between
the United States and Mexico, according to official documents and multiple interviews with agents.
Bush gives away
the farm — and the highway, too. Let's be clear — this is one more rotten fruit
of the NAFTA tree. It is that treaty, devised by Bush's father and shepherded by President
Clinton, which said that roads in Canada, the United States and Mexico must be open to carriers from
all three countries. Canada unfortunately already has full and total access to the U.S. trucking
market, and now it looks like Mexico will follow.
Has Bush Stopped Being Bush?
While conservatives have opposed President Bush in several areas, including immigration and federal spending,
there is now a growing sense of disappointment among them with his handling of the "war on terror" as well.
His problem is not, as liberals like to charge, that he is intellectually challenged, or that he does not know
how to take advice, is not interested, is incapable of working with complexity, or otherwise. The
problem lately with Bush is that he appears to have stopped being Bush.
Introducing
George W. Clinton. Will the real George W. please stand up? After seven years of
fearlessly confronting evil, both rhetorically and militarily, the Bush administration in Washington seems to
have faded away, replaced instead by a meek shadow of its former self. Firm resolve has given way to
disappointing frailty, as the shape and direction of US foreign policy increasingly resembles something
taken straight out of Bill Clinton's playbook.
Exactly what John Kerry would have done:
Let's
have a free market for housing and religion. Last week the Bush administration decided to
"freeze" for five years the interest rates of certain types of mortgages. … So now the government has
stepped in and said that, if you fall into a particular category of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARMs, in
the biz) and you're worried that it's getting way too adjustable, don't worry: The Nanny State is
about to readjust it well inside your comfort zone.
The New
Entitlement: Any freeze makes it likely that lenders will henceforth add risk premiums to the
cost of money for less-than-prime borrowers. Although the freeze of adjustable mortgage rates amounts to
a revision of perhaps hundreds of thousands of contracts, it will help a relatively small number of people.
And it will not help scrupulous borrowers who have scrimped and sacrificed to fulfill the obligations of
their contracts.
Bush
Faces Off With Texas Over Execution. The president wants to enforce a decision by the International
Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights
to legal help as outlined in the 1963 Vienna Convention. That is the same court President Bush has since
said he plans to ignore if it makes similar decisions affecting state criminal laws.
Update:
Supreme Court backs Texas in dispute with
Bush. Texas can ignore President Bush and an international court in refusing to reopen the case
of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday [3/25/2008]. The court
said Bush exceeded his authority when he tried to intervene on behalf of Jose Ernesto Medellin, facing the
death penalty for killing two teenagers nearly 15 years ago.
Base to
GOP: Hasta la Vista, Baby! Success in politics depends on the ability of a candidate or a
party to forge and maintain coalitions. One of the most successful coalitions in modern political history
has been the "Reagan Coalition", which brought together economic and social conservatives under the umbrella of
the Republican Party. ... The coalition that Reagan fashioned is fraying, however, and is on the verge of
unraveling. The causes are many, but the coup de grace is likely to be the current
controversy over immigration.
The Bush Betrayal — By The Numbers.
Almost half of the U.S.'s illegal alien population arrived since President Bush first took the oath of office
and swore to uphold the law … including immigration law, (and that's assuming the government's estimate
of the illegal population is right. Other estimates put the illegal population as high as 20 million).
President "Do Wrong".
President Bush has repeated, mantra-like, that the "guest worker" program he favors isn't amnesty. He can
say it until he's blue in the face, but any program that enables illegals to obtain a probationary card right away,
in order to live and work in the U.S., is amnesty, regardless of what Mr. Bush wishes to call it.
Bush Leaving Some Problems to Successors.
Over and over, President Bush confidently promised to "solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and
future generations." As the clock runs out on his eight-year presidency, a tall stack of troubles remain
and Bush's words ring hollow. Iraq, budget deficits, the looming insolvency of Social Security and
Medicare, high health and energy costs, a national immigration mess — the next president will
inherit these problems in January 2009.
Conservatives
Left Behind. Then there was the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind bill. We sucked up the
big-government approach, and Ted Kennedy photo ops, "for the children." But the real breakdown moment
between the Right and the president who — we thought — had some respect for us even though
he isn't really one of us came when he nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. His
patronizing pitch — she is a good lawyer, for a woman! — followed by insulting name
calling (you're elitists and don't want her because she didn't go to Harvard; you're sexist
and don't want another woman on the Court) was a low point for this administration.
The 20 Most Annoying People on the Right.
(#10) George Bush: I really hate to ding the President on a list like this, but he showed a level of
political incompetence last year that hasn't been seen since the Carter Administration and that had a lot to do
with the drubbing Republicans took in 2006. Moreover, there's the out-of-control spending, his incredibly
obnoxious position on illegal immigration, and his seeming reluctance to get serious about Iran, Syria, North
Korea and Muqtada al-Sadr is getting to be a real drag.
Bush Weighs Reaching Out To 'Brothers'. The Bush
administration is quietly weighing the prospect of reaching out to the party that founded modern political
Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Uncle Sam is afraid to say what he means
because he might offend the people who are determined to kill us all.
No More Jihadists. The
Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. government is moving to kill off jihadists, Islamo-fascists,
and mujahedeen. Not the people: the words. Reports from the Department of Homeland
Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center recommend discontinuing the use of such terms, because, as
the AP report says, "Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by
giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates." … If we eschew these
words, what how are we supposed to refer to our enemies?
Flying Blind in the
War on Terror: Imagine that following the bombing of Peal Harbor in December 1941, that FDR had
prohibiting the use of the terms "Nazi" or "Japanese Imperialism" due to pressure brought to bear by German
and Japanese-American lobbying groups. Or at the height of the Cold War that the US government had
determined to ban the use of "Soviet" or "communism" for fear of offending the sensibilities of
Russian-Americans or European socialists. Yet that is precisely what has happened following the
revelation last week by the Associated Press that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security
has issued guidelines banning the use of "jihad", "mujahedeen" and other Islamic terminology with reference to
Islamic terrorism. This move lays bare the ideological prison house of political correctness in which
our top policymaker's reside.
Strategic Collapse in the War on
Terror: Words matter, and in the global war on terror we are losing the battle of words, in a self-inflicted
defeat. The consequences could not be more profound. Recent government policy memoranda, circulating through the
national counter-terrorism and diplomatic community, establishes a new "speech code" for the lexicon in the war on terror,
as reported by the Associated Press and
now available in the
public domain. These new "speech codes" recommended that analysts and policy makers avoid the
terms jihad or jihadist or mujhadid or "al-Qaida movement" and
replace them with "extremists" and by extension other non-specific terms.
Let's call this 'terrorism' by its real
name. It's official: We're fighting … terrorists. You can also call them violent
extremists if you like, but never use jihadist or mujahedeen or Islamo-fascist to
describe our enemy. These words are deemed pejorative and offensive, according to a recent Bush administration
memorandum to federal employees whose jobs involve explaining our ongoing war to the public.
Bush's Favorite Muslim Fanatic:
When is a moderate Muslim not a moderate Muslim? How about if he is an employee of a Saudi Wahhabi organization
that has been identified by the Senate Finance Committee as one of a long list of Islamic charities that "finance
terrorism and perpetuate violence"? Last month, the White House appointed Talal Eid, an imam from Quincy,
Massachusetts, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom….
Conservative
Bush: Conservatives have not been happy with George W. Bush. For each
brand of conservatism, there is a diffferent critique. Not so with Ronald Reagan, whom
conservatives uniformly praise for various reasons. Seventy-nine percent of those in
attendance at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference said they would prefer a
candidate who is a Reagan Republican. Three percent would go for a G. W. Bush
Republican. One gets the impression that Bush isn't even considered a conservative.
Not a Dime's
Worth of Difference. The president visited the Mexican border again this week, in yet another
vain attempt to "revive his stalled efforts to overhaul U.S. immigration laws." The substance of his
comments was just warmed-up leftovers, couched in the same old phrases: "comprehensive immigration
reform," "family values did not stop at the Rio Grande," "they're doing jobs Americans are not doing," "I
oppose amnesty," "a practical answer that lies between granting automatic citizenship to every illegal
immigrant and deporting every illegal immigrant," and so on.
The Quixotic Quest of
President Bush. Where is the coherence in this "peace process? How does it advance our
strategy in what is properly called World War Four? Harming democratic Israel and an ostensibly
stable and relatively pro-western Jordan is not policy. It harms those nations irreparably, paving
the way for Arab massacres and weakens bulwarks of defense against growing militant Islam. It makes
all the tough talk about "the war on terror" more like tilting swords at windmills than real policy.
Bush in U-turn on global warming.
George W. Bush on Thursday unveiled a striking about-face on global warming, calling on the world's leading economies
to join the US in agreeing a global target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions before the end of his term in office.
President Bush's New World Order Legacy.
With his record of defending American borders and national sovereignty in ruins, President Bush has decided
to conclude his second term in office by making common cause with those who think America's future lies in
appeasing the "international community." He apparently wants his "legacy" to be that he cared for the
rest of the world. Watch your wallets — and your freedom.
The
Public Trough Is Bigger Than Ever. According to Michael Tanner's "Leviathan on the Right", federal
domestic spending under President Bush has risen 27 percent in real terms, while discretionary
non-entitlement spending has gone up 4.5 percent a year. (Clinton's annual increase was "only" to
2.1 percent.) Who'd have thought that a Republican president would challenge Lyndon Johnson's
spending record?
Last Stand for American Sovereignty. The
U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), now being pushed by the Bush Administration for a quick vote,
is already starting to get rave reviews from the press, with the Sacramento Bee saying that protecting the
oceans of the world could be Bush's "legacy." The message to Bush is that he should go out as a liberal
and he may salvage some of his reputation. But he will lose what is left of his conservative base.
Republicans
Really Are the Stupid Party. George Bush has been the biggest spender ever to sit in the White
House and although the GOP has improved marginally in fighting wasteful spending since the Democrats took
over, they certainly haven't convinced anyone that they have much in common with the 1994 Republican
revolutionaries who were responsible for balancing the budget in the Clinton years.
Sex Games:
Coming to a High School Near You. Title IX turns 35 this month and the bad gals have officially
won. Sex quotas in sports under the anti-discrimination law are de rigeur on college campuses.
And the Bush administration's failure to even challenge this perversion of the law — concocted, for the
most part, by and during the Clinton administration — means that eliminating men's sports opportunities
in the name of "creating" opportunities for women now has bipartisan blessing.
James Dobson Just Doesn't Get It.
[President] Bush has been given a free pass (by Christian conservatives) on his unconstitutional, liberal, big-spending,
socialistic, and imperialistic policies, because he "openly talks about his faith." Never mind that President Bush's
presidency more resembles Bill Clinton's than it does Ronald Reagan's. Never mind that if George W. Bush did not
have an "R" behind his name, one would assume that he was a protégé of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B.
Johnson. Because Bush "openly talks about his faith," he is accepted, defended, and lauded by the Religious
Right. If that is not shallow, I don't know what is.
President
Bush has been too nice to Democrats. One thing Republicans should have learned over the past six
years is the importance of having a President who is a master communicator. Unfortunately they have had
to learn it by having a President who is not one. Not only is President Bush not a master orator, but he
has just been too darn nice to Democrats who are playing politics at the nation's expense.
State of the Union 2007: A
Counterproductive Energy Policy. Overall, the energy plan described in this year's State of the
Union would lead to higher, not lower, energy prices for the American people.
The
phoniest scandal of the century (so far). When will the Bush administration grow some
guts? Except for its resolute — read: stubborn — position on Iraq, the
White House seems incapable of standing up for itself and battling for its point of view. The
Democratic assault on the administration over the dismissal of United States attorneys is the most
fabricated and phony of scandals, but the Bush people offer only craven apologies, half-hearted
defenses, and concessions.
Is 2008 The Year Conservatives Abandon The
GOP? It is no hyperbole to say that conservatives throughout America are extremely disappointed
and disillusioned with the national Republican Party. ... The Republican PartyÕs unwillingness to advance a
genuine conservative has left millions of grassroots Republicans on the verge of leaving the GOP.
Bush Plays More Word Games With Immigration.
In his next to last State of the Union Address, President Bush once more called for the irresponsible, self-destructive
immigration policy of mass amnesty. The President unfortunately showed he has learned nothing from the
bitter debate that has churned throughout the nation for the past few years. The "decider in chief" has
decided upon the wrong immigration stance, once more.
A Strong Critique of
"Neo-conservatism" and "Compassionate Conservatism": Once we peel away the sentimental rhetoric
and cut through the doublespeak, compassionate conservatism's moral and political teaching boils down to
this: first, that needs -- the needs of others -- constitute a moral claim on your life; second, that
you -- you the taxpayer, you the private individual -- have a "duty" to support -- nay, to love and
support -- the poor; and finally, that the federal government must coerce your love and compassion by
taking your wealth and giving it to "private" organizations that will use it to serve "those whom
prosperity has left behind."
Signing Away Our
Constitution: The Bush administration … has adopted the use of the signing statement,
affixed to legislation when signed into law, as a means by which the legislative power may be more fully
exercised by the office of the president, despite and against the Constitution's sole delegation of this
power to Congress.
The Conservative Case
Against Bush: We've been warned by the media, over and over again, that Republicans
are reshaping America into a Puritan's paradise. But at the end of the day, the media mostly
won and the Republicans mostly lost. Social conservatism is in little better shape now than
it was when Bush was first elected. In many ways, it is in worse shape.
Impostor: How
George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. George W. Bush
came to the presidency in 2000 claiming to be the heir of Ronald Reagan. But while he did cut
taxes, in most other respects he has governed in a way utterly unlike his revered predecessor,
expanding the size and scope of government, letting immigration go unchecked, and allowing the
federal budget to mushroom out of control. Despite their strong misgivings, most conservatives
remained silent during Bush's first term. But a series of missteps and scandals, culminating in
the ill-conceived nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, has brought this hidden rift
within the conservative movement crashing to the surface.
Forgetting the Consequences of Totalitarianism.
Last year Surgeon General Richard Carmona declared there is "no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke."
For effect he added, "I would not allow anyone in my family to stand in a room with someone smoking." His
opinion was supposedly based on 20 years of scientific evidence, and it has been cited as gospel by
smoking ban supporters.
[This is the kind of statement one would expect from a Surgeon General serving
under Al Gore or John Kerry.]
Fuel Grows
On Trees. Is there anything more depressing than yet another promise of energy independence in
yet another State of the Union address? By my count, 24 of the 34 State of the Union addresses since the
oil embargo of 1973 have proposed solutions to our energy problem. The result? In 1973 we imported
34.8 percent of our oil. Today we import 60.3 percent. And what does this president
propose? Another great technological fix. For Jimmy Carter, it was the magic of synfuels.
For George Bush, it's the wonders of ethanol.
Did
someone mention ethanol?
Funding
for 700-mile border fence falls short. President Bush's budget includes enough money to build only
half the U.S.-Mexico border fence Congress demanded last fall, leaving supporters of a 700-mile barrier seething
Monday and immigration advocates shrugging that it was just an election-year ploy.
Bush Must Control the Borders. The
President continues to promote a dubious "guest worker" program that is based on a claim that has no evidence
to back it up, and Bush, at this point in his presidency, has to know it. What's fascinating to
watch is how the media, who are extremely tolerant of illegal immigration, refuse to hold Bush accountable
for his deceptions on this matter.
President
Bush opens the border to Mexican trucks and drivers. Anyone who does much driving on our highways
in ordinary sedans knows how crowded with big trucks the highways already are. President George W.
Bush's latest concession to Mexico is to allow Mexican trucks for the first time to have open access to all
our highways, roads and bridges. It is painful to note that the Bush administration is less protective
of U.S. interests than the late, unlamented administration of former president Bill Clinton.
Bush Administration Wants Flu Shots For Illegal
Immigrants. The Bush Administration has indicated it wants doctors, clinics, and hospitals to
provide flu immunizations to illegal immigrants. In an interview with KFOX-TV, Secretary of Health and
Human Services Michael Leavitt was asked if the federal government has any safeguards to prevent illegal
immigrants from catching the flu. Leavitt responded by saying doctors should give flu shots to "every
person."
Bush Gives Immigration Wink and
Nod. Using soft words to describe events, actions or persons in order to disguise their true
nature is becoming a well-honed art among politicians in Washington and across the country, and nowhere more
apparent than in efforts by the administration of President Bush and its supporters to sugarcoat the crisis of
illegal immigration in and into the United States.
Pardons For Drug
Dealers, Jail For Border Patrol Agents. President George W. Bush has pardoned 14 criminals,
including several drug dealers and a man convicted for bombing a coal mine, but he refused to pardon two U.S.
Border Patrol agents sentenced to prison for intercepting an illegal immigrant drug smuggler at the
Texas-Mexico border last year.
Bush Slammed
as Border Patrol Agents Begin Prison Terms. As two U.S. Border Patrol agents surrendered to
federal marshals Wednesday afternoon [1/17/2007] to begin serving more than a decade in jail for shooting
an illegal drug smuggler, a federal lawmaker and conservative advocacy group expressed outrage at President
Bush for not pardoning the men. "This is the worst betrayal of American defenders I have ever seen," Rep.
Dana Rohrabacher said of the president.
Border agents sent to
prison. Amid protests and a flurry of last-minute efforts by congressmen, two border patrol
agents are scheduled today [1/17/2007] to begin long prison sentences for shooting and wounding a Mexican
drug smuggler who was granted full immunity to testify against them.
Is Sleeping with a Kennedy
un-American? First it was George W. Bush who, at least metaphorically, cuddled with the
Chappaquiddick Anti-lifeguard, also known as Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). This Bush-Kennedy
mini-group of Alcoholics Anonymous conspired to bring America "No Child Left Behind," which has added
nothing but unproductive meddling by incompetent bureaucrats.
Conservatives slam Bush
policies. Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer was critical of Mr. Bush for what he
described as the president's failure to more deeply inspire Americans after September 11. "The
president made a colossal mistake after 9/11 by simply asking people to shop," said Mr. Bauer, president of
the conservative group American Values.
Veto when
helpful. A chart on the webpage of the Clerk of the House lists each President and his
vetoes. The frustrating and disappointing story of the Bush Administration's failure to control
domestic spending is recorded. No President since Dwight D. Eisenhower has vetoed fewer than
the 21 bills President John F. Kennedy vetoed — that is, until George W. Bush. He has
vetoed only one bill despite serving nearly twice as long in office as Kennedy. Signed into law by
President Bush were expensive bills including No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Prescription Drug
Coverage plan.
The
Decline and Fall of American Conservatism. Here are some hard facts. Government spending
has increased faster under George Bush and his Republican Congress than it did under Bill Clinton, and more
people work for the federal government today than at any time since the end of the Cold War. During
Bush's first term, total government spending skyrocketed from $1.86 trillion to $2.48 trillion, an
increase of 33 percent (almost $23,000 per household, the highest level since World War II).
The federal budget grew by $616.4 billion during Bush's first term in office. If post 9/11 defense
spending is taken off the table, domestic spending has ballooned by 23 percent since Bush took office.
Bush seeks $30 billion for AIDS program.
President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to authorize an additional $30 billion to fight AIDS in Africa
over five years, doubling the current U.S. commitment.
Bush wants twice the funding for
AIDS. President Bush will propose doubling the funding to combat HIV/AIDS overseas in his last State
of the Union address Monday, one of several new initiatives he says will demonstrate his intention to "sprint to the
finish" of his time in office. The five-year, $30 billion proposal would provide treatment for about
2.5 million people infected with the disease and preventive measures for about 12 million others.
The Editor says...
First of all, 30 billion dollars divided by 2.5 million people = $12,000 apiece. Sending 30 billion
dollars overseas is not good foriegn policy, it is not going to help the U.S. in the slightest, nor will it
fix the HIV/AIDS problem.
Update:
AIDS funding boondoggle:
The Bush administration, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are all supporting
legislation to fund the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) for five years. The PEPFAR
bill before the Senate would more than triple funding for the program from the current $15 billion
to $50 billion.
Bush prepares to make deals with
Democrats. President Bush yesterday [12/20/2006] said his top priorities for working together with
Democrats in Congress will be raising the minimum wage, renewing the No Child Left Behind education act, boosting
energy alternatives to oil and completing an overhaul of the immigration system that includes a guest-worker
program.
Bush Supports
Democrats' Minimum Wage Hike Plan. President Bush for the first time endorsed a specific plan
for raising the federal minimum wage yesterday [12/20/2006], as he embraced Democratic calls to boost it
by $2.10, to $7.25 an hour, over two years. … The president's endorsement of a minimum wage increase
breaks with the position long held by conservative Republicans that the increase would hurt business
and ultimately the economy.
George
Romances the Nanny State: An Interview with Bruce Bartlett. Bruce Bartlett is a conservative
economist who took degrees from Rutgers and Georgetown before serving in both the Reagan and (original) Bush
administrations. Mr. Bartlett has always been associated with supply-side economics. Earlier
this year he released Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan
Legacy, which vigorously refutes the notion that our president is a conservative in any meaningful way.
White House Considers Appointing Pro-U.N. Activist as
Ambassador to the United Nations. Various reports indicate that liberal Republican Richard S.
Williamson is in the running for the post of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Williamson, a former U.S.
deputy ambassador at the U.N., is also a former board member of the pro-U.N. lobby group, the U.N. Association,
and favors "alternative financing mechanisms" for the world body. This is a euphemism for global taxes.
The Bush Record on the U.N.: Increased
funding of the U.N. (U.S. contributions to the U.N. System from risen from $3.1 billion in fiscal year
2001 to $5.3 billion in fiscal year 2005). Supports ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Supported Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean foreign minister, as new U.N. Secretary-General, despite his support
for global taxes. Ordered Texas courts to comply with an International Court of Justice ruling in a death
penalty case. Renewed membership in UNESCO, at a cost of $67 million a year.
Did
someone mention the United Nations?
A double
thumping. I'm doing my best to try and understand what message my president is trying to send
us. Last week, he told reporters that the Defense Secretary would be in place until the very final day
of the president's term. Turns out, that wasn't true at all — we now know that President Bush
and Secretary Rumsfeld made the decision "a few weeks ago."
Wait -- it gets worse...
Letter
shows Rumsfeld resigned before U.S. election. Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the unpopular Iraq
war, resigned as defence secretary before last year's November election but his decision was not announced
until after the voting, according to his resignation letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday [8/15/2007].
Bush, in a Shift, May
Speak at NAACP Convention. After not appearing before the NAACP for five years, President Bush
has tentatively agreed to speak to the group on Wednesday in what aides said was the
latest White House effort to improve relations with African-American leaders.
Update:
Feeding the Hand that Bites
Him. Last week, President Bush continued his policy of feeding the hand that bites him. In
the past, he has allowed Ted Kennedy to gut his education policy, petitioned intransigent Democrats to reform
Social Security and Medicare, and sent representatives to reason with Cindy Sheehan. … This time, Bush
went hat-in-hand to one of the prime forces in the racial grievance industry (behind Rainbow/PUSH and CAIR)
and learned firsthand capitulation does not pay.
Historical
amnesia at the NAACP: Such partisan bigotry from the chairman of a supposedly nonpartisan
organization makes it easy to understand why for five years Bush refused to attend the NAACP's annual
conventions. More of a mystery is why he changed his mind this year — and why, rather than
attempt to refute Bond's venomous caricature of his party, he seemed to accept it.
Will President Bush Lurch Left? No
sooner had congressional Republicans lost the midterm elections, making them the opposition party in Congress,
than President Bush called a press conference and made several statements that raised the question of whether
these Republicans would also need to become the opposition party to his administration.
The
era of big-government conservatism must come to an end. The single-best thing the lame-duck GOP
Congress can do is vote in a spending-limitation bill with balanced-budget targets for the next couple of
years. This would be a spending-cap pay-as-you-go, which means that any increased spending must be
offset by lower spending in other parts of the budget. Not higher taxes. Reduced spending.
The president's most stubborn critics won't
stop beating the Iraq and Katrina drums despite much success elsewhere.
Give
Bush a Break. Lord knows I have my problems with President Bush. He taps the federal
coffers like a monkey smacking the bar for another cocaine pellet in an addiction study. Some of his
sentences give me the same sensation as falling backward in one of those "trust" exercises, in which you just
have to hope things work out. Yes, the Iraq invasion has gone badly, and to deny this is to suggest that
Bush meant for things to turn out this way, which is even crueler than saying he failed to get it
right. But you know what? It's time to cut the guy some slack.
Democrats Won't Check or Balance
Bush. We don't need Congress to become more liberal to fix what's wrong with Bush, we need Bush
to become more conservative to fix what's wrong with Congress. In his first year, Bush cut taxes.
Democrats tried to stop him. … Also in his first year, Bush pushed through the No Child Left Behind Act,
dramatically increasing federal involvement in public schools. Without significant Democratic support,
this bill would have failed. … Sen. Ted Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, sponsored it. Federal
education spending has more than doubled since then.
To
the Dismay of Some, Bush Takes Gentler Approach Toward Putin. The last time they had a serious
talk about Russian democracy, the room bristled with anger. President Bush, aides recounted, pressed
President Vladimir Putin about his crackdown on dissent. And Putin threw it back in his face, asserting
that Bush was no different because he had supposedly fired CBS anchorman Dan Rather.
Why I Will Not Vote for Any Republican. In
every area of domestic and foreign policy, the conservatives controlling the Republican Party have expropriated
the central tenets of the left, while claiming to be an alternative. This has created a false alternative
to the political left, posing as its opposite but supporting the same basic goals. This has sowed massive
confusion in people's minds, and limited the American people to a choice of poisons. This confusion is
undermining people's capacity to even conceive of a true alternative to the welfare state and military
defeat.
It's not hard to imagine that
President John Kerry would have done the same.
Congress
is crying wolf on separation of powers flap. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a nearly unprecedented joint statement condemning the FBI raid and demanding that
the FBI return the documents. With all due respect, these claims are preposterous, and I don't believe
President Bush should have intervened, even if just to provide a cooling-off period.
More about Congressman Jefferson's Brush with the Law.
Who Is The U.S. Senate Working For?
Recent legislative actions in Washington, D.C., raise the question of just who the U.S. Senate is working for.
… The Senate Immigration bill is straight out of the United Nations' Agenda 21 plan for ruling the
world. There is Amnesty for all the Illegal Aliens lawbreakers who are here in violation of our
Immigration laws. The Senate is trying hard to convince voters that it's not Amnesty, but that
is what the Senate bill provides.
If he said this before he was elected, I sure don't remember it.
Gonzales
says Bush opposes English as national language. President George W. Bush has long opposed
making English the country's national language, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on
Friday [5/19/2006], the day after the Senate voted to do so.
The President is sending mixed messages.
Bush Wants Newcomers to Learn
English. The White House took both sides in a dispute over English being the national
language Friday [5/19/2006] as a broad immigration bill moved toward a final Senate vote next week
with one conservative predicting it will never become law. Bush's support for the dueling
sides doesn't stray from his long-held view on learning English, said White House press secretary
Tony Snow.
Bush on English Assimilation:
Hipocrasia. From ballot boxes to hospitals, workplaces, and even the Internet, President Bush's
words and deeds are perpendicular to each other. The Bush Administration aggressively promotes
multilingual voting. … President Bush reaffirmed President Clinton's executive order that medical centers
that accept federal money must provide free translators to foreign-language speakers. … Bush's hypocrisy is
most vivid on his own website, WhiteHouse.gov. Click the Español button and read what he did
today … in Spanish.
There is a separate page about making English the
official language of the U.S.
Bubba Dubya?
A curiously Clintonian turn in U.S. foreign policy: The president seems to have reversed
course. He still speaks about democracy and the war against terror, but increasingly his administration
charts the path of least resistance and paper compromise so dominant during the Clinton years.
White
House compares illegal immigration to speeding. The White House on Friday [5/26/2006] said
a Senate bill that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants is analogous to a traffic law that
allows a speeder to pay a fine and continue driving. "If you had a traffic ticket and you paid
it, you're not forever a speeder, are you?" White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said in response to
questions from The Examiner.
Kick U.N. out of New York
City. What will be the legacy of George W. Bush? Will it be the spending,
the most aggressive we have ever seen from a Republican president? Will it be the creation
of a Medicare prescription drug plan, which has become the largest and most expensive new entitlement
program in 40 years? Perhaps it will be the president's utter refusal to hear the voice of
the vast majority of his constituents on the issue of illegal immigration.
The drips who
leak: One could make a case that [Mary] McCarthy and her ilk have established a Vichy
CIA — a separate agency dedicated to a counterwar with the administration or, more specifically,
President Bush. Bush didn't help himself much by appointing Gen. Michael Hayden to run the
agency. … Selecting Hayden was bewildering, but this administration suffers from something
akin to attention deficit disorder. Its focus is so scattered as to be nonexistent at times.
12 Down: Top secret
war plans, 36 Across: Treason. The Bush administration is sounding very cross —
and doing nothing. Bush wouldn't want to get the press mad at him! Yeah, let's keep the media on
our good side like they are now. Otherwise, they might do something crazy — like leak a
classified government program monitoring terrorist financing.
President defies
most Republicans on immigration. As President Bush's poll numbers drop dramatically even among
his base, the question most frequently asked by angry Republicans is: Why, oh why, is Bush so stubbornly
rejecting the advice of his supporters even though that advice is consistent with the thunderous message from
public opinion surveys?
G. W. Bush's
Liberal Legacy: A Republican recently said to me that he no longer supports G. W. Bush, although
he previously had voted for him. "He's turned out to be a liberal just like his daddy," he said, "and
I don't want a thing to do with him." This seems to be a common theme echoing throughout the blogosphere,
where pundits have realized that 'compassionate conservative' really means "liberal in disguise." Is
Bush a liberal? On four out of five key issues, Bush has shown his liberal leanings.
Now how much would you
pay? Bush's answer to all problems seems to be more federal spending. Perhaps this explains
No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D and the 49 percent increase in discretionary non-defense
federal spending since 2001. The fallacy is that increased federal spending brings positive
results. Nope. While Bush is free to brag he's spending two-thirds more on border security,
this increased spending hasn't made the situation better.
Why Should
the Faithful Believe Bush Now? The Republican Party thinks its base of social conservatives is
a nest of dummies who have no memories and respond like bulls whenever red flags are waved in their
faces. The people who should be angry this week are not liberals or gays or lesbians, but the
president's most loyal supporters.
The census has
grown beyond its bounds. While the Patriot Act and National Security Agency wiretapping have
received enormous attention and criticism from the mainstream media, another federal agency has been quietly
gathering far more personal information about U.S. residents than those laws ever can. And this
unreported project affects thousands more people. Our inquisitive federal government has been
demanding that selected U.S. residents answer 73 nosy questions. They are threatened with a fine
of $5,000 for failure to respond.
[The invasive and unreasonable nosy questions on the census started under President
Clinton. So that's why we voted for a man who said he would "bring strong
conservative leadership to the White House." Sounds like the census is
getting more intrusive, not less.]
Bush on Gas Prices: Who's He
Kidding? With gasoline prices close to $3 a gallon, President Bush this morning [4/25/2006]
gave a disingenuous speech to an alternative fuels association about what he was going to do to stem the
rising tide. There were a few flashes of candor and insight, but, on the whole, it was a sad example
of political capitulation by a former Texas oilman who certainly knows better. What Bush clearly
understands is that prices rise when demand increases faster than supply, and that supply is being limited
in the United States by government.
Gas Fumes Obscure GOP Base. In
short, the Republican base wants to know: Where's all this partisan extremism we were promised? … The
actual GOP response? Hundred-dollar rebates. Cash money, friend, just for drivin'. We feel
your pain: Here, have some money we borrowed from someone else.
Republicans earning
grassroots' disfavor. When are Republican politicians going to wake up and quit playing footsie
with obstructionist Democrats?
Is Bill Clinton
Still President? From time to time various wags have suggested that we send Bill Clinton to
negotiate with the mullahs on our behalf. It turns out it isn't necessary; we've just adopted his methods.
Bush's
troubles — not Iraq, Katrina, or illegal aliens, but fuzzy principles. On domestic
spending matters, Bush again shows that Republicans often talk the talk and fail to walk the
walk. His father said, "Read my lips: no new taxes" — and then raised
them. Yet many Republicans, thirsting for victory, supported Bush-43's call for a
prescription benefit bill for seniors — the biggest expansion of Medicare since
its inception in 1965.
Series of Setbacks Threatens Morale of
Religious Right. "You can cut it with a knife, that's how upset they are," said Richard
Viguerie, a long-time member of the social conservative movement, which is largely evangelical and considered
to be the base of last year's presidential victory.
Bush Pushes Renewable Energy at Colorado
Lab. President Bush on Tuesday [2/21/2006] acknowledged that Washington has sent "mixed
signals" to one of the nation's premiere labs studying renewable energies — by first laying
off, then reinstating, 32 workers just before his visit.
The real
Bush? The consensus on the Right was that President Bush's fifth State of the Union
Address was his worst. … The president proposed that the government preside over a wide array
of non-petroleum energy options. That has all the characteristics of an "industrial policy," with
the federal government picking winners and losers. While violating the Republican Party's free
market philosophy, this is a course with a lengthy pedigree of failure all over the world.
Addicted to
what? The first part of last Tuesday's State of the Union — on national
security — was tough, clear, principled, well reasoned. The second part was a
laundry list, reminiscent of the worst of Bill Clinton. I was nodding off when I heard the
President Bush say, "America is addicted to oil." Addicted to oil! That woke me
up. America is no more addicted to oil than it is addicted to bread, to milk, to paper, to
water, to computers….
Some Republicans
ARE Conservative. Typical of out-of-control domestic-spending programs are the new Medicare
Part D prescription drug boondoggle and the disgracefully earmarked 2005 transportation
bill. Spending on a bloated government bureaucracy that Reagan Republicans once endeavored
to eliminate entirely, like the Department of Education, is up 139 percent since Clinton left
office. So, this is what we've been fighting for?
Bush
administration: "Expect more government". Do you ever get the sinking feeling when
reading a serious piece that the author didn't realize the implication of his words? One is
immediately stricken with such sentiment when having a glance at the website detailing a new Bush
administration initiative called "expectmore.gov." … The website itself is a farcical read
worthy of Kafka.
Liberal in Chief:
Like most of his breed, our liberal in chief seems to regard religion as a mere opinion, an
edifying individual option rather than a necessary social cohesive. This is why he seems
ill prepared to deal with the Muslim world, where they take a different view of it.
How I wasted my vote: When
I told others here on FreeRepublic that I would be voting for the Constitutional party candidates, I was
told that I was wasting my vote if I were to vote for a third party. I was told that we conservatives
needed to stick together to work on getting Republicans candidates elected, that it was our only hope to
reduce federal spending, reduce the size of the federal government and to get conservative judges
appointed to the supreme court. So I listened and voted Republican.
What a buddy you have, Mr
Bush! General Pervez Musharraf — your buddy, as you are fond of calling
him — has seen to it that Omar Sheikh does not go to the gallows despite an anti-terrorism
court having sentenced him to death three years ago. From the so-called jail in Hyderabad, where
he is provided with all the comforts and facilities he asks for — computers, Internet
connections, fax machines, et cetera — Sheikh continues to mastermind acts of jihadi
terrorism, violent attacks, and anti-US demonstrations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries.
Bush Beset by
Political Miscues. The bad news has been coming in waves, from furors over Hurricane Katrina
and warrantless wiretapping to the error-plagued rollout of the new Medicare prescription drug program, Vice
President Dick Cheney's hunting accident, growing civil strife in Iraq, and now the Republican revolt over
the administration's Dubai port decision.
South Dakota starts
up the debate. Republicans around the country treated [South Dakota Gov. Mike] Rounds to
an old-fashioned shunning. President Bush brushed off South Dakota, repeating his oft-stated belief
in exceptions for pregnancies initiated through rape and incest. Not a single Republican of
stature uttered so much as an "attaboy."
Resurrecting
the line-item veto. When his personal approval ratings were far higher than they are
now, President Bush might have succeeded in reducing the size and cost of government. Instead,
he chose "compassionate conservatism" as his doctrine and big-government conservatism (which is a
contradiction) as his calling. Now the president, who has not vetoed a single bill in more
than five years in office, wants Congress to give him line-item veto power.
Big Bush Budget: The President's
budget for Fiscal Year 2007 proposes aggregate federal spending that is 49 percent higher than in
2001 (the last Clinton budget). While the President is calling for spending at the Department of
Education to be reduced by 23 percent versus last year, it would still be 81 percent higher
than in 2001. That's a faster rate of growth than defense spending.
It was a bad week for limited government.
Saying "No" to Spending
Controls. In a closed meeting early last week [January 2005], the Republican majority
in the House of Representatives quietly kicked off the new legislative session by making it more
likely that government will continue to grow rapidly. … Entitlement spending, especially on
health care, is soaring and unless tackled will lead to enormous deficits or huge tax increases.
Presidential
priorities: Keeping America competitive requires affordable government. The federal
government is by far the biggest expense for successful American businesses and industrious American
workers, because the industrious and successful pay nearly all federal income taxes. Runaway government
spending has increased the cost of production for business and lowered the standard of living for consumers.
Fury as Bush leaves
Christ off his Christmas cards. Conservative Christians in the United States
who received Christmas cards from the White House this month are complaining that something
is missing: Christmas. George Bush, the president, sent out cards with a generic
message, wishing 1.4 million supporters a happy "holiday season".
Excellent!
Is Bush a Conservative? The
great problem affecting Americans these days is a mixture of apathy and anger over the
growing realization that nothing they say or do matters. It is a growing sense of
hopelessness as government spirals out of control and beyond their reach.
Life is getting
worse, and other myths: At one of his State of the Union speeches, President Bush was
applauded after talking about "spending discipline," but since he became president, the government has
hired a million more people and increased spending more than on President Clinton's watch. It's
not just because of terrorism. During Bush's first five years, spending at the Department of Labor
was up 31 percent, Agriculture: 38 percent, Education: 81 percent. And
the new prescription drug benefit is yet to be counted. Put a politician in power, and he'll take
your money and spend it. That's what politicians do. Even Republicans.
No child left
behind – Republican ode to socialism. The Constitution grants no authority
for the federal government to be involved in education, and for good reason: centralizing all
learning in one distant spot is a stupid, narrow, dangerous, communist idea, one which has throughout
all the world's history led to despotism and slavery. Thus our forefathers limited federal power
to a few necessary objects like national defense and foreign policy, and not at all to education.
Gambling with the Children. After
decades of both parties supporting a limited federal role in educational matters, we now face a broad-based
assault on public education from the Beltway. State rights? Local control? This education
law makes a mockery of those concepts as it imposes radical and often untested change strategies across all
districts. Republicans and Democrats should join together to challenge this serious violation of
state rights.
The Bush education
fix will only make it worse. The President's proposal accepts the incorrect conclusion
that the problem with education is simply an overblown bureaucracy that wastes federal funds and fails
to enforce clear standards by rewarding bad schools. His statement that "no child will be left
behind" comes straight from the decade-old motto of the Children's Defense Fund, the group that claims
Hillary Clinton as one of its leaders. By being so off-the-mark, there just is no way the Bush
proposal can address a single school reform issue.
The dried-up veto
pen: Last week, I was asked to testify before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.
… I explained I am not particularly a deficit hawk, nor do the size of the Bush
tax cuts bother me. What really bothers me is the orgy of spending by Republicans. It is
just appalling that the recent highway bill had 5,000 "earmarks" in it, almost without
exception, utterly unjustified pork barrel projects.
The Conservative movement
is dead. The appointments of John Roberts as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and
Harriet Miers as associate justice serve as the epitaphs for the political movement. But even
before these betrayals, conservatism was on life support. It could not have survived the
irresponsible spending by the Republican Congress, approved by the president during the last
five years.
It's My Party. Today,
with Republicans controlling both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government,
there is a widening credibility gap between their political rhetoric and their public
policies. What will happen to Republicans if these freedom-loving, grassroots
activists don't show up for work next fall?
Bush is kicking
away his base. In December, the House passed a border-security bill authored by House Judiciary
Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. The bill rejected support for Bush's guest
worker/amnesty plan. Since 88 percent of Republican House members voted for this bill,
that should have been a wake-up call to the president.
VAWA
Re-authorized. On Thursday, January 5, 2006, President Bush signed into law a
five-year, $3.9 billion extension of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), originally
enacted in 1994 under President Clinton. VAWA is a particularly pernicious piece of
pork-barrel legislation that puts billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, and the imprimatur
of the federal government, in the service of the radical feminist ideology that all men and
boys are potential abusers who must be re-educated according to the dictates of the
nation's left-leaning "domestic violence" industry.
President's knees
go weak when confronted with feminist agenda. We are more than five years into the Bush
presidency, but it appears that former President Bill Clinton's feminist policies are still in force. Is
Bush a feminist, or is he just a gentleman who is intimidated by feminists and unable to cope with their
unreasonable demands, tantrums and rudeness? When it comes to public policy and personnel appointments,
the result is the same.
Violence
Against Women Act abuses the rights of men. In January, President George W.
Bush signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act without public debate, even though evidence
has surfaced that Congress should have examined before the law was extended. The act, which costs nearly
$1 billion per year, is one of the major ways former President Bill Clinton bought the support of radical
feminists. Why Republicans passed this bill is a mystery. It's unlikely that the feminists who
will spend all that money will ever vote Republican.
Utah
takes on the Feds. If you seek a window into conservatism's current consternations,
look into Utah. The nation's reddest state … is rebelling against President Bush's
No Child Left Behind law. Only three states have not challenged in some way NCLB's
extension of federal supervision over education grades K through 12….
My
pick for the court: Members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, are
leading the campaign to pressure President Bush into withdrawing the nomination of Harriet Miers
to the United States Supreme Court. "What a stupid, stupid mistake," said one member in a
Washington Times article last week, describing the nomination. A mistake? Not on Bush's
part. The mistake was on the part of those who bought the spin that Bush was a conservative.
Too many
yes-men. Few are willing to risk their own status and power to tell the boss he's
making a big mistake. The latest flap over Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers is a perfect
example. … Apparently no one stepped forward to warn the president what a monumentally
bad idea he'd come up with when he selected Miers over dozens of other, better-qualified candidates.
An illusion ripped
wide open: The truth is now dawning on many movement conservatives that George W.
Bush is not one of them and never has been. They were allies for a long time, to be sure, and
conservatives used Mr. Bush just as he used them. But it now appears they are headed
for divorce.
A
self-imposed Borking. Bush blinked — twice — and picked nominees
he thought would provide the Democrats with no material for an attempted Borking.
Touching a
nerve. It has been a tough month or so for those of us on the right. Face
it, the media storm in New Orleans made the President look bad, and he has not risen to the
occasion with the sort of rhetoric that came to his lips in the immediate aftermath
of 9–11. His palliative spending plans have also caused many to blanch,
especially as the prospect of tax hikes looms to pay some of the bills for empty
cruise ships, and the quarter trillion dollars demanded by Louisiana's Congressional
delegation from the other 49 states.
GOP
'Spending Spree' Threatens the Party's Grip on Power. Eleven years after
Americans routed Democrats at the ballot box over undisciplined spending habits,
breaking the party's monopoly on power in Washington, voters may be leaning toward a
similar punishment of the Republican Party, with the issue again revolving around
the dominant party's spending of taxpayer dollars.
AWOL in the
War of Ideas. "If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out
that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present
one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'" It wasn't George Bush who
said that. It was George Orwell.
The GOP Battles a Litany
of Troubles. It's hard to tell which is more irritating for conservatives less
than a year after they savored Republican election triumphs of 2004: President Bush's latest
pick for the Supreme Court or his high-dollar pledge for recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
Blank check for
repairs. When asked Sept. 16 how much his grand program to rebuild the
Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina will cost, he said, "It's going to cost whatever it's going
to cost." And, boy, will it ever. The current estimate of taxpayer money needed to
pay for Mr. Bush's grand scheme range from $150 billion to $200 billion. And
that's on top of a $612 billion increase in the federal budget since he took office in 2001.
Will the
GOP be Katrina's Biggest Casualty? Neither Tip O'Neill nor Jim Wright — two
powerful former Democratic Speakers of the House famous for their big spending ways — could
have said it better than Delay. The worst thing about Delay's comment is not its factual
unreality, bad as that is, but what the remark says about the GOP congressional leadership's
attitude about spending our tax dollars. "We've already cut it to the bone" or "there isn't
any more fat to cut" or variations thereof were typical responses from O'Neill and Wright to critics
of excessive federal spending.
The GOP Could
Lose in 2006. GOP-leaning voters are often not highly visible or "seen" in the fray of
political combat. They tend to be too busy to write letters to the editor or show up at
protests. They are more focused on what they regard as the serious business of living: family,
jobs, faith. They are often an "unseen" majority, making their presence felt only on Election Day,
if they believe their vote will make a difference. If they think there is little real difference
between what the two parties will do such voters can easily stay home — and do.
Stop
Hillary now! In Bush's campaign leading up to his win in 2000, it was made clear
that Bill Clinton's troubles culminating with his impeachment in 1998 would not be
mentioned — Clinton's abuse and misuse of high office was not suitable fodder for
discussion at any official campaign function during the 2000 Republican National
Convention. Heroes of the movement to impeach Clinton were not invited to
participate and were made to observe from a distance, lest campaign officials
or the candidate himself be tainted by close association.
Is Bush a
socialist? He's spending like one. The first excuse was the war. … Then
there was the big increase in agricultural subsidies. Then the explosion in pork barrel
spending. Then the biggest new entitlement since Lyndon Johnson, the Medicare
drug benefit. Then a trip to Mars. When you add it all up, you get the
simple, devastating fact that Bush, in a mere five years, has added $1.5 trillion
to the national debt.
[Nobody ever had to ask if Ronald Reagan was a socialist.]
Big spender
Bush runs out of credit with conservative allies. The federal budget has
gone up by a third to $2.47 trillion since he came to power. This summer's $286 billion
Transportation Bill was an exercise in indulgence, including 6,371 special favors, known as "pork" and
worth $24 billion. A surplus has turned into a record deficit.
President Bush is a nice guy,
but he's no Grover Cleveland.
Is it
permissible? In February 1887, President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing
a bill appropriating money to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said, "I find no
warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the
power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of
individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service
or benefit."
The Bush
Betrayal. In 2000 George W. Bush campaigned across the country
telling voters: "My opponent trusts government. I trust you." Little
wonder that some of his supporters are now wondering which candidate won that
election. Federal spending has increased by 23.7 percent since
Bush took office.
Miers, Bush, and a Discourse of
Constitutionalism. President Bush may have asked conservatives to just trust him one too
many times. On issues from the No Child Left Behind Act to prescription drugs, Bush has pulled his
party along with policies many found distasteful by promising big political payoffs which have yet to
materialize and (conservatives suspect) never will. With Miers, they are being asked to make
the biggest gamble yet.
Republican
Revolution? For reasons we can't begin to explain, the Republican Party is in the midst
of an identity crisis. Indeed, with each passing week, they behave more like the Democrats we
elected them to displace.
Lame Duck, Big Spender. Veronique
de Rugy [of the American Enterprise Institute] has calculated that George W. Bush has boosted total
inflation-adjusted discretionary spending in his first term by 35.1 percent. To put that in
context, chew on this: LBJ — the Texas legend who created the Great Society and,
for all intents and purposes, the Vietnam War — only boosted discretionary spending
33.4 percent. What's more, the gap between Bush and LBJ will only grow.
Bush Pardons Coal
Mine Bomber, 13 Others. President Bush granted pardons Wednesday [9/28/2005] to 14 people,
including a member of the mineworkers union who was convicted for his role in bombings at a West Virginia
coal mine, a counterfeiter and a bootlegger.
All
in the family. President Bush and other Republicans … should recall
the values of family and limited government that they touted when they were
elected. According to Census Bureau data, the relative levels of
poverty in America are best predicted not by race, but by family makeup.
Supreme Court
politics: Sen. Kennedy has succeeded with the news media in establishing a new
standard of "mainstream conservatism" for a [Supreme Court] justice. President Bush has put forth "friendship" as
a qualification for being named to the high court. Bush is by far the bigger obstacle in the
way of a conservative court. While Kennedy's ploy presents a temporary problem, Bush's stance
could be fatal.
Who are these
Republicans? Gone is the heady talk from the days of the Republican Revolution
in 1994, when whole departments and agencies were to be eliminated. Today, the corpulent state
gobbles up taxpayers' money, and it is Republicans who declare that no "offsets" can be found
for the new spending natural disasters will require.
Why Would Bush
Adopt the Wild Rhetoric of the Race-Baiters? Some conservatives are
concerned with President Bush's New Orleans speech because of the unlimited federal
spending it seemed to promise, but I was far more concerned with his arguable vindication
of the wrongheaded notion that racial discrimination is responsible for the
disproportionate impact of the flooding on blacks.
More articles about Hurrican Katrina.
Is the U.S. in Slow
Motion to Socialism? Just the increase in the budget this year is
equal to what it cost for NASA to put a man on the moon. Republicans in Congress
have become so enamored with big government that they now celebrate a budget with
a $100-billion increase as a sign of progress.
Stop
this corporate scandal now. Is the administration tolerating an increased risk
of terrorism because it doesn't want to stop big businesses from hiring illegal aliens?
Republicans
must keep focus on woes caused by illegal immigration. Democratic Govs. Bill Richardson
of New Mexico and Janet Napolitano of Arizona have declared a state of emergency and asked for federal
help to deal with the costs of the violence and property damage caused by illegal immigrants coming over
their southern borders. If President Bush lets these partisan Democrats get to the right of him
on the immigration issue, all Republicans will suffer in the next election.
United States of North
America. Many of President Bush's staunch supporters, who see him as a flinty-eyed custodian
of our national security, are puzzled over what they see as his uncharacteristic squishiness on the issue of
protecting our borders. They don't understand that George W. Bush has long been a proponent of
amalgamating the United States with Mexico, and is an unabashed proponent of regional integration as well.
More material on Immigration Issues.
Attention: Deficit
Disorder. So what should President Bush do to deal with a potential economic problem
and prevent a clever Democrat from outflanking him to the right on the deficit? By all means,
veto the monstrous transportation bill that is now worming its way through Congress. It would
be the President's first veto in four and a half years of office, and it would send a powerful
message that the days of uncontrolled spending are over. [He should also] revisit the
Medicare prescription drug benefit, which has turned into a boondoggle even before it has
become fully operational. This entitlement program alone will add $700 billion to
federal deficits over the next decade.
More articles about Money Down the Drain.
Under Bush, Federal
Spending Increases at Fastest Rate in 30 Years. President George W. Bush [became] the
first full-term president since John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) to not veto a single bill. The
result is a congress that has been completely unconstrained in satiating its appetite for pork
and corporate welfare.
Is it
time for conservatives to dump the GOP? Thanks to the incredible expansion
of federal entitlements, regulations and pork spending sanctioned by the GOP leadership
in Congress since 2001, there is virtually no chance that Big Government is going to be
shrunk even a little any time soon. And since there is no sign the folks running
Congress are willing to change course, why shouldn't conservatives dump the GOP?
TSA budget proposal rewards incompetence. The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2006 budget includes a massive tax increase on
every American who uses air travel. … The total tax burden represents 26 percent of a
typical $200 ticket.
Rhetorical question: How many of you
thought you were voting for higher taxes when you voted for Bush??
Congress
Approves $800 Billion Increase in Debt Ceiling. The U.S. Congress approved an
$800 billion increase in the nation's $7.384 trillion debt limit, the third increase
in the government's borrowing limit since President George W. Bush came to office.
The Republican Spending Explosion:
Although defense spending has increased in response to the war on terrorism, President Bush has made little
attempt to restrain nondefense spending to offset the higher Pentagon budget. Nondefense discretionary
outlays will increase about 36 percent during President Bush's first term in office. Congress has
failed to contain the administration's overspending and has added new spending of its own. Republicans
have clearly forfeited any claim of being the fiscally responsible party in Washington.
Has the GOP Lost Its
Soul? Bush has basically stepped aside, not once exercising his veto, compared to 78 vetoes by
Reagan, who had to deal with powerful Democrat majorities in the House throughout his White House years.
Having a president who won't veto unleashes the big spenders.
Federal Programs That Survived the
Republican Revolution: A major reason for all the new spending is the inability
or unwillingness of Republicans to eliminate virtually any government program. Many of the
more than 200 programs that the Republicans pledged to eliminate in 1995 in their "Contract with
America" fiscal blueprint now have fatter budgets than they had before the changing of the guard.
Bush's Overspending
Problem: The administration has failed to tackle the serious overspending problem in
the discretionary budget. Indeed, based on his first three budgets, President
Bush is the biggest spending president in decades.
Bush's Achilles' Heel: Governement
Spending Is Out of Control. Sadly, a cursory inspection reveals that the president is engaged in
an overspending frenzy that continues to reward programs that should be abolished.
Drugs for the Elderly … and taxes
for the children. It makes no budget sense to create a new elderly entitlement because of the
large federal deficit and the looming financial crisis in Medicare. If Medicare were truly reformed with
drug costs offset one-for-one with cuts elsewhere, it would make sense. But if Congress simply dishes out
more taxpayer money, gray-haired voters will be empowered to demand even more from presidential campaigners
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