We Won, Now Let’s Find Some Perspective

Today is a great day for Conservatives.  There is a weariness in our souls that has somewhat dissipated.  But something has been troubling me for some time now, and I think that it is important that we all take a minute to find some perspective.

I’ve repeatedly heard from television talking heads, my radio, and politicians that now the work will begin to reduce spending, provide tax breaks, repeal Obamacare, push nuclear energy, so on and so forth.  But folks, that’s just not going to happen.  I’d be willing to bet that none of that happens.

This election was not about actively reversing trends.  We just don’t have the power to do that.  Our side will not be able to push an agenda, and even if our side could do that, the likelihood of President Obama signing anything Conservatives sent to him is slim to none.  In military strategy you have the “rollback” and you have “containment”.  The rollback is the complete annihilation of the enemy.  And containment of course is a strategic blockade.

What this election was truly about was creating a two year containment or a blockade.  We all saw very clearly how much damage could be done in two years with a Progressive president and a Congress full of his sheep.  The results of this election simply keep President Obama in check, when he was clearly not in check the last two years.  2012 should be Conservatives goal for really seeing a reversal of trends.

Perspective is an important thing, and it will be increasingly important as we edge closer to 2012.  Why?  Mainly because Conservatives have made a stand, the Tea Party has made a stand, and that passion, involvement and trend needs to continue into the 2012 presidential election.  If we lose perspective though, and talking heads and politicians begin waxing poetic about how they are about to roll all of Obama’s policies back over the next two years, then the reality is that Conservatives could be in the same pot of boiling water in two years time that Liberals and Progressives are currently sitting in.

Now is not the time for politicians to be making promises that Congressional Conservatives do not have the power to act on, and talking heads and radio show hosts should be reminding viewers and listeners of this fact.  We would simply be setting ourselves up for failure.  Under-promising and over-delivering should be the slogan of every Conservative in office right now.  For the last two years we have been playing a football game without a defense or an offense.  We just got our defense in play to keep Obama from out right scoring.  But the reality is that we won’t have an opportunity to get an offense into the game until 2012.  If we all keep that in mind over the next short 24 months, and keep our passions and involvement high, then we can take back the Senate and potentially the presidency and start the Republican Rollback of the Progressive movement.

WSJ: Liberals Can’t Comprehend Elementary Level Lessons

This article is terrific. I didn’t write it, and I wish I had. You should all read this and promptly pass it around to your liberal friends. Be sure to hover over them and laugh slyly while they read.

My favorite part, and one that was very telling, was the 67% of liberals who believe that more restrictions on housing makes housing more affordable.  Talk about everything happening in the world suddenly making sense!

-nick

Health Care Officially Passes Senate

It passed on a party-line vote, too. However, do not despair yet:

1. The White House is outright lying about President Obama’s campaigning on the public option. Desperation?

2. According to Politico, the White House is admitting negotiations over the bill may go past the State of the Union address in late January or very early February. Given that there have been multiple passed deadlines already, and primary season hits full stride in May, will vulnerable Democrats like Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) be willing to pass this monstrosity in the final vote? Their constituents will be (and are) paying attention, and 2010 is going to be a Republican year anyway, so conservative Democrats are going to continue to be very careful.

3. Democrats in the House have felt ignored and trampled for much of the health care debate, and The Heritage Foundation has compiled a number of issues the House and Senate will have to overcome to get a final bill passed. Question: will the House be willing to cave? That verdict is uncertain.

4. Politically influential conservatives, liberals and moderates are against the Senate bill. Polls show Americans are increasingly against the so-called “ObamaCare” version of health care reform. Again, will vulnerable Democrats risk voting for the bill?

5. The designed-to-be-a-pain federal legislation process is in America’s favor.

It’s Christmas- let’s enjoy the day, thank God for sending us His son and enjoy our time with family and friends. Let’s also pray for the guidance and ability to prevent this bill from gravely harming Americans by not letting it pass.

Boxer’s Opponents Scraping The Barrel

A few months ago, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had an ego trip with a general who called her ma’am. This caused quite a bit of hilarity among conservatives, and wincing among Democrats. Now Boxer’s primary opponent hopefuls are making the most out of it.

The arrogance of Boxer will light a bit of a fire under the seat of the tiny Republican base in California, but it won’t play out in the general election. Boxer is powerful- the current chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee- and a third-term senator. Incumbency is a huge strength in congressional elections, and Boxer isn’t going to lose to a Republican in California, especially one using an example of her arrogance as a primary weapon.

What might work, however is continuing to highlight her major support and substantial role in creating a cap-and-trade bill; highlight how the bill was pushed to next year by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), indicating both how unpopular it is and how there are no major plans to pass it (no, Democrats are not going to pass a job-killing bill in the same year as an election during a major recession); and perhaps how even President Obama has admitted electricity costs will skyrocket and how the EPA Administrator admitted earlier this year in Hill testimony that ?[she] believe[s] that essential parts of the chart are that the U.S. action alone will not impact CO2 levels.? Too, emphasize how it was liberals who created California’s economic and other messes, and how conservatives can fix them.

The Mayo Clinic Speaks

Senator Reid, when The Mayo Clinic, possibly the most respected medical establishment in the nation, dislikes your bill, you are in trouble.

President Obama and The Mayo Clinic have worked together on health care reform this year. Mayo has critiqued the health care reform efforts before, but also praised efforts on payment reform. However, consider the following regarding the current Senate bill: “Expanding this system [Medicare] to persons 55 to 64 years old would ultimately hurt patients by accelerating the financial ruin of hospitals and doctors across the country. A majority of Medicare providers currently suffer great financial loss under the program. Mayo Clinic alone lost $840 million last year under Medicare. As a result of these types of losses, a growing number of providers have begun to limit the number of Medicare patients in their practices.? Despite these provider losses, Medicare has not curbed overall spending, especially after adjusting for benefits covered and the cost shift from Medicare to private insurance.? This is clearly an unsustainable model, and one that would be disastrous for our nation?s hospitals, doctors and eventually our patients if expanded to even more beneficiaries.”

Mayo spends a fraction what the most expensive Medicare-accepting hospitals do on patients and uses fewer resources by far. When they can’t break even on Medicare, who can? Yet Democrats want to expand Medicare? Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean was on MSNBC the other night- I was in the gym and decided to watch Keith Olbermann for a few minutes- and he fully supported the expanded Medicare concept. That alone is almost enough for me to oppose it, though when a single-payer advocate in Congress supports it as well and Stuart Butler of The Heritage Foundation is against it the opposition becomes complete.

Mayo has its critics- but many of those critics merely claim Mayo can keep costs down because it has patients that are less racially diverse, wealthier, etc. Those critics add to the case Mayo makes above, because if Mayo does have the advantages critics claim and still can’t break even on Medicare reimbursement, how can the vast majority of the rest of the nation’s hospitals even come close?

Liberals make the argument that Medicare brought millions of elderly people out of poverty- this may or may not be true, but the simple fact is that many or perhaps even most Congressional Democrats don’t have a clue about financial sustainability- granted, nor do most Congressional Republicans- and by expanding Medicare they hasten the bankruptcy of America.

We’re All Racists Now…

Apparently we’re all racists now. Jimmy Carter told me so.

I’m from Dixie. The land of labels. The area of the country were if anyone has a problem with anything that anyone else of the opposite skin color does it’s always attributed solely to racism. The accusation usual comes from Liberals. It’s frustrating. It’s equally as frustrating to listen to Carter proclaim his excitement of the South’s progress in race relations like he is sitting on some cloud as a deity encouraging his Southern brothers toward some goal that he had already achieved ages ago.

Jimmy Carter, please go away. You aren’t President, you aren’t anything. You have failed so many times I cannot even think of a time you succeeded other than somehow tricking the country into voting for you. Oh, and congrats on that Nobel Prize for keeping North Korea free of nuclear weapons. As a Georgian, if I could kick you out of my state I would. You bring the Empire State of the South nothing but shame.

I was happy to see Robert Gibbs shoot down Carter’s assessment. It may be the first truthful and logical thing I’ve ever heard the man say.

When Maureen Dowd wrote her hate column to Joe Wilson last week she went after his affiliation with the Sons of the Confederacy. Anyone reading this without knowledge of what the SCV is would immediately associate this with some sort of secessionist or racist organization, which is what I’m guessing since it was in the New York Times. The more accurately named Sons of Confederate Veterans is a veterans organization. How dare he be apart of a veterans organization!

SCV was formed in union with the Grand Army of the Republic, which is the veterans organization of Northern soldiers during the Civil War. These groups M.O. is to research and preserve the history of the war, establish battle sight memorials, and help individuals locate information on relatives that fought in the war. The SCV has received commendation from both Republican President George Bush (Bush, George W. “Letter of Commendation.” Confederate Veteran, June, 1996: p.6.) and from Democratic President Bill Clinton (Clinton, Bill. “Letter of June 21, 1994, from Bill Clinton.” UDC Magazine, Sept. 1994: p. 9.). But how dare you be a member Joe Wilson! That makes you a racist!

It must be noted that Obamacare will cover illegal immigrants. Ed Morrissey covered this on HotAir.com when the neutral Congressional Research Office announced this a few weeks ago. I was told recently by a blue crusader that Joe Wilson was a racist because he yelled, “You lie” after Obama mentioned illegals. That somehow because Obama was lying about coverage of illegal immigrants, and Wilson called him on it means that Wilson is a racist because the lie he uncovered pertained to illegal immigrants. Seriously? Informal fallacy perhaps?

Does anyone realize what’s going on here?

That’s right Admiral, it’s a trap. Democrats want us to be having this conversation. They want us to be stirred up and talking about race relations, and our thoughts on the black president. Which is completely ironic in itself considering the fact that WE HAVE A BLACK PRESIDENT! White people had to vote for him too.

But the whole point of all of this is that we are now not talking about what we should be talking about: the health care and cap and trade bills. There is recent precedence for this if you don’t believe me. Remember how concerned we all were for the well fair of the voter in Iran? Then Michael Jackson died. Iran what? Sad but true.

What’s also sad but true is that race relations in this country may have just been set back 20 years. And at the fault of the liberals stirring up the controversy. Ironically the Democrats always proclaim to be the ones promoting minorities. But Robert Byrd is running around unafflicted by his own party for his massive involvement in the KKK. And it’s the Democrats that block conservative efforts to move minorities out of inner city schools to provide them a better education. It’s almost as if the liberals don’t want to see minorities succeed, be well educated, and find successful jobs or become business owners. I wonder why? Ask Herman Cain.

But I digress. Focus people, focus! Let’s get back to the real issue before those in power in DC try to play some sleight of hand while they have us busy with our heads in the clouds over an issue that’s not really an issue.

-nick