The Real Sporer

Are the Caucuses Dead?

2011-06-12T10:53:00.124-05:00

Events are unfolding that will affect every Iowa Republican, indeed probably every Iowan. We are witnessing the end of nearly forty years of our state's prominence in Presidential politics.

Last week's announcement by Mitt Romney is the latest, and probably fatal blow, to the First in the Nation Status. Non participation in the Ames Straw Poll (held in the odd year summer preceding the even year winter Presidential Caucuses) is the ticket of death for Republican Presidential contenders in Iowa.   The two summer front runners in 2008, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain- the most liberal Republican nominee since President Ford-narrowly defeated Ronald Reagan in 1976-both skipped the caucuses.   History demonstrates that those who skip the caucus do poorly in the Caucuses.   The smart candidate would surely question, why caucus at all if a poor finish is almost assured?

Both GOP luminaries told the same big lie about the caucuses as does the liberal media complex. The more flattering description of Iowa Republicans portrays us as "more conservative than the national Republican demographic". The less flattering description, routinely used by the John McCain's of the party claims that Iowa Republicans are little more than Bible and gun clinging hayseeds. The only difference between Iowa and southern Republicans in such a meme is our addiction to ethanol and not tobacco.

Losing participation of the two front runners was key blow in 2008. Part of both campaign's explanations was a common belief that they system in Iowa was unfair and too controlled by insiders and arch conservatives. What course of action should party leadership-and I emphasize not just the Chairman and Central Committee members-have taken for the 2012 process?

Dispelling the false notion that Iowa is a remote right wing outpost would seem to be the first and most important order of business.   Obviously the facts don't support a conclusion that the Caucuses are the product of a far right wing electorate. Our governor is among the most liberal Republican state wide office holders in the country. Our party leadership is tightly controlled by a small minority of equally "pro-government" Republicans, most of whom gain from a large actively spending government.

Moreover, the 2008 Caucus winner derived almost his entire margin of victory in the state's most urban, educated and populous county. The second place finish was Mitt Romney himself. Another very mainstream Republican won the caucuses in 2000 (George W. Bush, of course). But let's take a further look at more remote history.

The 1996 winner was Bob Dole, hardly a right wing revolutionary or flaming evangelist. Dole also won in 1988, pounding a real right wing evangelist Pat Robertson by a robust 12%. George H.W. Bush even defeated Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In light of the reality of our demographic (almost all caucus attendees really come from Iowa's three or four largest counties) and our history it would seem party leadership would have an abundance of ammunition with which to defend the Caucuses. Shockingly leadership has taken a different direction.

Governor Branstad and the IGOP's majordomo, Doug Gross issued the most critical statement yet about Iowa's Presidential process from an actual Iowan when he said:

“If Iowa becomes some extraneous right-wing outpost, you have to question whether it is going to be a good place to vet your presidential candidates,” Doug Gross, a Republican activist from Iowa, told The New York Times this year…"

The quote implies the existence of a problematic condition. It also implies that we Iowa Republicans must somehow become more liberal if we are to save to process. As we covered earlier this year, Bruce Raestetter, among the most liberal Republicans in Iowa, implicitly attacked the process by going to New Jersey in what appears to be a totally failed attempt to recruit Governor Chris Christie (whose views on tax subsidized industries might have proven rather disappointing to the Raestetter Mission had it been successful). One may wonder at the motivation for words and actions that denigrate the process but the words have been said and the deeds have been done.

In fact, Secretary of State Matt Schultz's response to Jon Huntsman's withdrawal from Iowa appears to be a lonely voice among party leadership in defending the process and righting the lie that the Iowa Caucuses are an assembly of monolithic narrow minded superstitious lemmings.

Our first in the nation status is always on thin ice. We are a small state with an even smaller minority population (a major problem in a politically correct environment). Florida in particular-with its 29 electoral votes-is always breathing down our neck. Other larger swing states, Virginia, Colorado for example, can see much to gain from the demise of the Caucuses.

When the front runners pull out of a state two cycles in a row, for reasons echoed by that state's political leadership,  it will become virtually impossible to prevent the political predation by the existing large and hungry contenders. After all, when important Iowa Republicans criticize the process and the electorate in Iowa what other conclusion can Republicans in other states draw?

It appears that 2012 will be the year remembered as the death of the Iowa Caucuses.  Killed from within and without.

Palin's latest ploy...liberals become laughing stalks.

2011-06-04T12:14:00.004-05:00

Sarah Palin's references to an arcane part of the famous story of Paul Revere's "midnight" ride has sure provided a little comedy at liberal expense. In a word: "played".

By now the world knows Sarah said Revere warned the British, as indeed Revere's own account demonstrates to have happened.  Revere's "warning" of course, was not that the Americans were coming, but a threat that the large American force would crush the assembled "Regulars".

The liberal reaction vividly displays typical liberal tactics, and the disingenuous manner with which such tactics are implemented.

However, most significantly, it demonstrates that liberals are truly and typically ignorant of real history. Liberal education and historical perspective are almost entirely post modern. The premise: one must learn "why" and then the facts that support the theoretical conclusion.

Real historians learn the historical facts, provided by the historical actors and contemporaneous reports, and then apply historical evaluation. Maybe that's why half of 12th graders cannot identify George Washington.   Imagine the mouth breathing if those same 12th graders were asked to describe the monumental accomplishments of the revolutionary commander before he became president.

Once the liberal ignorance of Revere's warning of defeat was exposed their behavior was classic and predictable.

The liberal response.  Deny the historical evidence, furnished by Revere himself. Why?  Was Paul Revere a known liar? Nothing in the historical record supports that proposition.

Rather, liberals now argue that Revere's contemporaneous record of a conversation should be disregarded because it inconveniently demonstrates the shallow nature of the Sarah phobic left. The liberals also get a chance to toss a little mud in the direction of an American hero, laingappe for those who believe no American heroes exist beyond the 50/60s civil rights campaigns.

Maybe the progressives believe Revere to have been a psychic of greater precision than say, Edgar Cayce. Surely Revere created a false account of his 1775 conversation with the knowledge that it would be used to expose the hair trigger on the liberal on the Palin gun.

Of course, the body of biographical information about Revere describes a cocky and defiant revolutionary. Those statements of Revere's that Sarah referenced are entirely consistent with a defiant personality's response to unexpected captivity by the British.

How loud is the laughter on the Palin family truckster? Loud enough to hear in sleepy little Iowa.

The Strange Case of Rep. Weiner's wiener: this job takes two hands.

2011-05-29T14:48:00.000-05:00

The now well known case of Rep. Weiner has exploded on the Internet over the current holiday weekend. While this is good news for a couple of other cads, John Edwards and the Governator, "Tighty-whiteygate" it strings Anthony Weiner on the always uncomfortable if equally proverbial horns of dilemma.

One one hand, if Weiner's version is true, the Twitter account of a sitting United States Congressman was hijacked by someone that intended to harm that Congressman. Make no mistake, real harm has been done to real people if this story is the product of identity theft. You married guys need to reflect on Anthony Weiner's holiday weekend. Gals, how humiliated does the recently minted Mrs. Weiner feel this weekend? Identity theft is not a prank, its a crime.

If a hacker was involved Rep. Weiner has a legal duty to report the crime to the Capitol Police and the FBI. Thus far Weiner has not acted like an outraged and innocent victim and his failure to do so seems highly inculpatory behavior.

On the other hand, if guilty, Weiner has illustrated not only sufficient personal hedonism to earn novice status in the Kennedy Caucus of Philandering Politicians but the intense hatred liberals have for all things conservative coupled with a complete refusal to accept wrong doing by any of their fellow travellers.

While virtually all of the evidence points toward Weiner's guilt (e.g. the timing of the tweets, the direct reference to his air time in Seattle, the putative paramour's previous references to Weiner as her boyfriend and the disappearance of her social networking) liberal websites have excreted pages of vitriolic ad hominem, expressed in terms far more odious than that employed to describe UBL by the same authors, at Andrew Brietbart. Breitbart's crime? Violation of the first rule of American journalism-telling an unflattering truth about a liberal politician.

By Tuesday we can undoubtedly expect to see the main stream liberal media complex fulling investigating the scandal they have heretofore ignored. One can imagine David Gregory's special on what Breitbart knew and when did he know it? Matthews will have Ed Schultz (fresh off his suspension for calling a Republican radio host a "slut") Paul Krugman and Andrea Mitchell for a special panel discussion of congressional action to rescind Breitbart's First Amendment rights. Rachel Maddow will cover the extent to which Bretibart can be prosecuted for hate crimes against the GLBT community.

Remember the theme of Ken Starr's brutality to the ultimately quite guilty Bill Clinton? Yeah, like that.

Hopefully, Andrew Breitbart will keep the matter alive by refusing to allow the MSM to redefine the issue. As for you, Anthony Weiner, you'd be better off following a preferred adage of the late Freddy Sporer, paraphrased for a PG audience: if you employ your johnson, clad in boxers or briefs, as a compass you are probably going in the wrong direction.

Rastetter and the Gang jeopardize First in the Nation status

2011-05-09T22:23:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's disclosure that ethanol executive Bruce Rastetter and a group of Iowa donors travelled to New Jersey could not better demonstrate the extent to which the small but powerful donors display contempt for the Caucus process and the importance to Iowa of our "First in the Nation Status" (FINS)

Bruce Rastetter

As a backdrop, let us remember who is making the trip. Mr. Rastetter runs a business that is almost completely dependent on government largesse. Ethanol claims it cannot compete without government assistance (usually known as "corporate welfare"). As a capitalist myself, I am of the mind that businesses that need tax dollars to survive probably should not exist. At the same time, all of the other energy industries should not have their tax subsidies and special tax status either so ethanol gets a more fair market in which to compete, but I digress.

Mr. Rastetter and the gang are smart people and they know that the mood of the GOP primary electorate, even in Iowa, is increasingly hostile to crony capitalism; they also know that Republican candidates will mirror that mood if they want to win. Ultimately, the direct benefit that Mr. Rastetter derives from your tax dollars is not the point. The Rastetter Mission is an appropriate exercise of its participants First Amendment rights-but at what cost?

Back in my Party days, working on the 2008 Caucuses and the 2007 Ames Straw Poll I recall our battles to belie the meme, constantly iterated, by foes of our first in the nation caucuses, that Iowa is a small insider state and the Caucuses are an unfair representation of a candidate's strength.

The labor was neither easy nor pleasant. Everyone who wanted to steal our prized "First in the Nation" status repeated the same attack line, best described by our former Political Director: "the Iowa GOP had a reputation for being a political juke box-put your money in and we would play any song you want." By early January we had to essentially remove our then Chairman for promising to terminate staff members who crossed the Romney campaign.

FINS is entirely dependent on not just the integrity of the process but the perception of integrity itself. All that blood, sweat and tears last cycle disproved the national image of a desperate juke box.

Now, with Republicans in control of much of the apparatus of state government our position is much stronger for local issues. Unfortunately, so are the facts that can form the basis of a meme that Iowa is in the pocket of a few oligarchs close to a virtually regnant Republican governor. Even if the Rastetter Mission was wholly altruistic the image and spin it will generate does nothing but load the shells about fifteen other states will fire at us.

After all those battles and skin shed over 2007 and 2008 this one image of Iowa oligarchs picking the candidate our state will support in the Straw Poll to Caucus cycle could provide the justification for any number of candidates to withdraw or minimize their effort in the Hawkeye State. Mayor Giuliani and Sen. McCain both used a similar argument to justify their respective minimal efforts and participations in Iowa.

If we lose FINS our state will be as interesting to Republican Presidential candidates as Kansas and Wyoming.

... and they're off! (GOP SC debate

2011-05-06T14:08:00.002-05:00

The 2012 Presidential race officially started in South Carolina last night. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Congressman Ron Paul and former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain were in the starting gate at the Greenville Political Paceway. What a race it was.

Win: Herman Cain. The Hermantor entered the evening as more of a gimmick than a serious candidate. He emerged as the most Presidential sounding candidate. Throughout the evening the Hermantor's answers were on point with the audience almost every time. More importantly, Mr. Cain's answers showed an incisive mind that grasped the job of the President as America's CEO. Mr. Cain also displayed a decisive personality that knew how to prioritize and solve problems, not just blame someone else for creating them. On substantive issues Mr. Cain gave the best immigration answer a Republican has given in any similar format, or anywhere else for that matter. The identification of foreign policy problems was followed by actual real world solutions.

Mr. Cain's best answer came when asked about his lack of political experience. After pointing out that all of the nation's problems have been created by professional politicians, the next line said it all: "How's that working out".

Mr. Cain left Greenville with the audience behind him. Two separate focus groups (one SC, one national) felt Mr. Cain rocked the debate. The most ironic aspect of the Cain eruption was the love from the Gamecocks. After electing a black Republican in a white majority district (Tim Scott) the South Carolina audience and focus groups loved another black Republican. How long will people give credence to the liberal racism rants?

Place. Gov. Pawlenty. Tim Pawlenty came into the debate as the most serious of the competitors. The major downside of the Pawlenty presentation was simply a willingness to lapse into meaningless political speak. The electorate really is angry and scared. The average Republican typically finds biography or tag lines unrewarding and this year that desire for substance is greater than any time since 1980.

On the upside, Gov. Pawlenty did express plenty of substance, especially on foreign policy questions. The Governor massaged the anti-union question quite well. Gov. Pawlenty seemed Presidential and the power of that imagery is incalculable. The candid manner in which he admitted error in his initial position on "cap and trade" was wrong went over well with the audience and apparently most after action focus groups.

The most obvious and most significant difference between Mr. Cain and Gov. Pawlenty was the Governor's tendency to talk about what he had done and Mr. Cain's focus on what he would do. This is not a conventional election cycle and conventional campaigning just may not work.

Show: Sen. Santorum. Rick Santorum surprised both the crowd and this author. The ex-Senator's attack on the Obama foreign policy was spot on, particularly the distinction between new strategic policy and the tactical execution of the UBL take down. Sen. Santorum also well presented the very reasons Republicans cannot back down on the "social issues" agenda. We are defined by the nature of our society. Killing babies, homosexuals marrying, celebration of secular or invented holidays rather than traditional holidays is not the society that Republicans want.

The downside for Sen. Santorum was more stylistic and rhetorical. The Senator's demeanor and manner of speech betray, or perhaps misportray, a degree of impatience and petulance that will not play well with the electorate. The Obama seems cool, serene and Presidential (although also given to petulance and condescension from time to time) and our candidate needs to walk a fine line between aggressive attack and calm leadership. Both Mr. Cain and Gov. Pawlenty portrayed such demeanor, Sen. Santorum did not. This is a fixable problem and time will demonstrate if and if so, how quickly, the shine appears on the Santorum campaign.

The Libertarians: This author must express a degree of bias, I too tend more toward libertarian philosophy than most conservatives. Hence, I find the more radical domestic ideas expressed by Cong. Paul and Gov. Johnson rather attractive. Ron Paul is one hundred percent right, sixty-five percent of the time and about zero percent on target on the remaining thirty-five percent. The paleo-isolationism urged by both Cong. Paul and Gov. Johnson, while a popular feature of American history, is so out of place in the modern world of Jihad, terror and energy policy as to disqualify both gentlemen from the Presidency.

On Wisconsin

2011-02-18T11:47:00.001-06:00

Who'd ever have thought that the land of Bucky the Badger might be the spark of the next restorative phase of American history.

Of course everyone knows that Wisconsin state public employees, especially teachers, are engaged in vigorous protest in Madison and Milwaukee. The protesters have obtain leave from work by lying about illness. Duplicitous and weak school districts are cancelling school because so many teachers have used illness as an excuse. All of the elements of a real battle for fundamental control of the political direction of the country exist in Bucky land.

The issue is stark. The Republican majority want to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees and require such employees to contribute roughly 5.8% of their income to fund their own pensions, rather than we, the taxpayers, further fund the pensions. Since public employee pensions are of tottering, if any, solvency right across the country this issue is going to arise in almost every state, including Iowa in the foreseeable future. As a result, people all across the nation have a stake in the outcome.

The issue and events create a bright line distinction between the ideological premises of the two parties and the interests of their respective constituencies.

Democrats and their protesting public labor alter egos insist they are protecting their "right" to collectively bargain. Collective bargaining for anyone, much less an employee of the general public and not a private entity, is not a right founded in the Constitution but a privilege that was created by legislation and common law and can be modified or extinguished in the same manner.

The conduct of the labor protesters in Wisconsin also demonstrate how truly "special" are the interests of Wisconsin public labor (and their brothers and sisters in every state). Wisconsin has a large budget deficit, a problem that adversely affects everyone in the state. The public employee pension system is running upside down, a problem that only adversely affects the ultimate beneficiaries, the public employees and their dependent spouses, who constitute a very small percentage of the population. The striking and protesting by the liberal progressives in Wisconsin abundantly demonstrates that liberal progressive exaltation of social justice and equity over self interest doesn't mean the sacrifice of the liberal progressive self interest.

The protesting labor activists and their Democrat supporters in Madison, Washington and the national media are not only willing to sacrifice the greater public good of state solvency for their narrow personal interest, they are choosing a vehicle of protest that is designed to hurt the very public whose sympathy they hope to evoke. For example, every public school that closed because of the political flu experienced en masse by its faculty caused hundreds of parents to miss work, and probably loose pay, to suddenly care for children whom were reasonably expected to be in school.

Yes, that is as selfish as it sounds; you the taxpayer for whom the public employee works is expected to not only pay for the absurd employment and compensation policies imposed by organized labor on the public through your tax dollars, but to take even more out of your pocket so as to allow the public labor to protect their personal stake in your money and your future at your even further expense (and frankly, on my time as well, Mr. Hand). Hopefully every single mom in Milwaukee and Madison who has lost two or three days and counting of badly needed income while staying home with their children when they should have been in school will remember this painful lesson in hypocrisy.

But the pure selfishness even further demonstrates the liberal's commitment to their self interest truly knows no bounds. Why do schools have attendance policies? Why are government social workers so adamant that the wards whose lives they control keep all appointments? The benefits of structure and learning are sufficiently important for you to provide two thirds of your state tax dollars to education alone but not sufficiently important for the liberal progressive union activist to even delay their protests to a weekend day on which the public would have no expectation that the protesting workers would perform their official duties for the public, as they are currently contractually obligated to do. Again rules for you the taxpayer but special rules for the special people who apply the rules you must follow and fund.

The Democrat legislators further demonstrate the complete disrespect liberal progressives have for the democratic process itself. After eight years of liberal progressives at the highest level rejecting the legitimacy of the Bush presidency, and two years of Democrats and their media allies triumphantly postulating that "elections have consequences" the Democrat legislators fled Wisconsin so as to further prevent operation of the government.

Finally, the public on both sides are angry. Decades of the agonizing anger of the left and its shrieking anti-war, anti-Nixon, anti-Reagan, anti-Gingrich, anti-Bush, anti-Palin, anti-global warming, anti-G20 protests and hate speech has grown so offensive, so personal, so dangerous to the general welfare and so enraging to normal Americans that normal Americans, who belong to no special interest, are mobilizing in not just the Tea Party movement generally but are now going to Wisconsin to counter demonstrate in support of the public and the Republican solvency plan.

What will happen when Richard Trumpka (AFL-CIO) and Andy Stern (SEIU) send in the goons. Images of Egyptian style riots. The liberal media will spin the lie that conservatives have started violence. Conservatives will be further angered (no one has yet claimed that reward for producing video or even audio of any Democrat Congressmen being racially slurred at a Tea Party rally) by the monstrosity of the lie and continuous stream of personal invective, hate and blame by which liberals, at their highest levels of leadership in politics and the media, slur any who disagree on almost any topic, much less one as existential as collective bargaining for public employees.

The 21st Century version of Bloody Kansas?

GOP budget: We've stopped the digging, now let's ...

2011-02-13T15:05:00.000-06:00

... start the fill.

Speaker Kraig Paulsen presented a very informative summary of Republican 2012 budget over at The Iowa Republican.

Of course one is immediately, if hopefully unsurprisingly, struck by the significant difference between Republican governance and spending and Democrat spending and governance. Even the most cynical of punditry has to admit that at least Republicans recognize the existence of a budget crises while Democrats are the crisis. A failure to acknowledge and champion that distinction by anyone who believes in smaller government is merely exalting hypothetical perfection at the expense of tangible improvement.

But, Mr. Speaker, recognize your strength and be heroic at a time the state needs heroes. First, I am sure you and I and a majority of Iowans agree the state is in crises. During the decade of my birth Iowa had ten electoral votes and soon we all know that number falls to six. That means that Iowa's share of the national population has fallen by forty percent. If that is not a state in absolute free fall what then must free fall look like? Since the size, scope and expense of state government has grown exponentially during the same lifespan, only the truly uninformed or an ineducable biased partisan could possibly fail to conclude that more of the same is unlikely to change the results.

Second, the people are with you. The public default opinion right now is less government, period. The public wants change and the reality of what is before us if we fail to change is not foreign to the daily life of the average Iowan. I know you've got people, hell I probably know the people themselves, talking about polls, and opinion and avoiding major conflict. They are wrong, very wrong.

Third, you have the position from which to redefine the dialogue. The facts are on our side in a major way. Education spending provides the best example. In 2001-02 the certified enrollment in Iowa public schools was 494,290.7 and per capita K-12 spending was $5,122. By 2010, the number of certified enrolled students had fallen by approximately 4.2 percent to 473,493.4 while per capita spending increased to $7,419, an increase of approximately 31 percent. During that same time student performance at the K-12 public schools most assuredly did not improve by 31 percent.

Measuring the priority government devotes to any one thing in terms of appropriated dollars has obviously failed. People understand it when they hear it but they have to hear it much more frequently to overwhelm the contrary liberal message dominant in academia and the news and entertainment media and, thereby to change the governing philosphy of the last fifty years. We need to create a conviction, not merely transitory opinion, that objectively small government is the primary solution to Iowa's domestic problems.

Now is the time to define a Republican metric that measures government in results produced not money spent. The public gets it, that's why we won such a landslide last year. Now is the time to educate the public, who now have only a vague notion of what's broken (but they are convinced its broken) and to educate to a degree and in a way we've never before attempted. If we do, we defeat the Democrat's charge that Republicans deprive the public of services that the public, in principle, want (e.g.schools, law enforcement).

Now is the time to force Senator Gronstal to defend the indefensible, especially in any split Senate districts. Let's give him our blue sky and then force every Democrat incumbent who has to stand in 2012 to defend the money down a rat hole in every local forum and media in their respective districts. We send our top spokesman on to the small talk show in Ottumwa or Osceola, or wherever such media exist, to hammer the obstructive Democrat Senate every day.

When the Dennis Black's or Jack Hatch's of the world dare to face the public we have our supporters organized on site to force the debate. Let their union bullies get ugly at those forums, so much he better; the jack boot approach Mr. Murphy took last year certainly proves that point. If we stick to the facts and keep it simple we will see significant movement in our direction. Even if forced to compromise in the end we can force the dead end liberal progressive and union thugs to defend the logically indefensible on their way to the 2012 ballot.

We have the facts on our side. We have public opinion on our side. We have a whole new 21st Century grass roots media and movement mobilization on our side. We just won a landslide. Now we have the votes to force the Democrats to answer one simple question: how much more will our state have to shrink before we reverse, not slow, the direction that shrunk our state by forty percent in only fifty years?

SD 47 Recount: 40% Done-No Changes

2010-11-20T12:02:00.000-06:00

We have been working on the recount in SD 47. Ottumwa Precincts 1-5 are finished, and about 40% of the absentees. At this point, no changes in the count have been detected.

Mark Newman has an informative article in today's Ottumwa Courier.

Rep. Elect Raúl Labrador answers Dingy Harry Reid's promotion of bigotry

2010-11-18T18:22:00.001-06:00

Remember when Dingy Harry Reid asked the question, why would a Hispanic be Republican? Newsmax TV has a great interview with Representative elect Raúl Labrador, which to my ethnically Greek ears sounds pretty Hispanic. Mr. Labrador provides a most fulsome answer to the unredeemable Reid, whose politics of ethnic division upon which the modern Democrat Party is to a large extent premised.

Check it out.

Iowa Caucuses: A 2012 Preview

2010-11-15T20:38:00.001-06:00

The general election is over for 2010. We here in Iowa have a new old Governor and huge new majority in the Iowa House of Representatives. In all probability, given even minimal leadership from the top, we probably can gain functional control of the 26-24 Senate. The opportunities to save our state abound.

Nothing in all of these changes is of much interest to anyone who does not live in Iowa. Of course the people beyond our borders find Iowa most interesting in quadrennial odd years for one very big reason: the Iowa Caucuses. As we enter 2011 we are even now preparing for the 2012 Caucuses. Presidential candidates will soon be as plentiful as the deer the roam our highways.

In 2008 former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee took the caucus beauty pageant in a huge upset of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Huckabee became a major player in Iowa off the strength of his close second place finish in the 2007 Ames Straw Poll.

The landscape has not changed all that much.........or has it?

Mitt continues to enjoy strong support from the Republican moderate establishment (read Branstad/Gross faction). The Governor will dictate the RPI Chairman and will hire and place the staff at RPI which staff, in turn, will run the Straw Poll. That faction will provide Mitt with a huge institutional advantage. Back in 2007, when almost the entire SCC voted for Huck (including some pretty well known and long time establishment moderates), the finance staff-who heard the real master's voice-floated, albeit briefly, the idea of refusing to sell game day tickets to the Huck campaign. While that idea was a non-starter in 2007, in the entirely new environment that exists today there is every reason to believe that the institutional ruling clique will provide Mitt with every possible organizational advantage. Otherwise nothing has really changed. Mitt is the same attractive, likeable if malleable, candidate. Cautious as ever, Mitt has done nothing since 2008 to gain or lose a vote in Iowa. Mitt has a strong following and they will turn out for Caucus 2012.

Of course, even those institutional advantages have limited value in a democratic system. Huck also has a powerful and developed Iowa operation.   The Huckabee organization largely supported Bob VanderPlaats in the last primary. The 50% of the GOP primary electorate that did not vote for Governor Branstad will make up about 80% (give or take a few points-mostly based on weather) of the Caucus turnout. Where Huck had a shoe string operation in '07, should he venture north (or is it south now that he is a Fox News celebrity?) in 2011 he will have a large, well financed organization with which to battle the other Iowa GOP establishment. Huck's organization will be every bit as strong as the Branstad/Gross organization for caucus purposes. The biggest joke of all is the media canard that Huck can't play in the city. About half of his 2008 margin was in Polk County, Iowa's only real metropolitan area. Huck's profile has increased substantially and he will be more formidable in 2012 than 2008.

Two wild cards exist.

The first wild card is, of course, Sarah Palin. No politician in the United States enjoys Sarah's current celebrity status.  The 2010 cycle showed that Sarah has the staying power that comes from conviction-and we haven't seen a true conviction politician since, uh......1980? Sarah has married that conviction to a genius for promotion that is reminiscent of early Brian Epstein. Sarah appears to have no organization in Iowa. She is also saddled with the last minute endorsement of Governor Branstad-a bitter pill for those saw her as a "Tea Party" candidate willing to take on the establishment. That endorsement will also provide ammunition to the Huck campaign who will seek to portray her as something other than a tried and true social conservative.

Sarah's campaign will be based on something new, an internet driven outreach on behalf of an already known megastar.   Simply look at the crowds she draws and you have the answer to the question: but how does she sell in Des Moines? She sells great. RPI can't fill a 400 person room with 200 freebies for the other contenders (Mitt, Huck, Timmy P, Newt et al) but can draw 1500 for Sarah-and that's a 1500 that mostly represents the 20% of the Party that would never support her but would still pay to see her. If Sarah continues to display the leadership, courage and conviction that she displayed throughout the last cycle it is highly likely that her celebrity will simply swamp her opponents, here in Iowa and pretty much everywhere else. People want change and Sarah represents the change they want.

Newt is holding the second wild card-for an entirely different reason. Everyone knows that Newt is the most brilliant, creative and articulate pol we've got-and by "we" I mean the country. You might not like him but only the most blind of all hatred would seek to deny Newt's obvious genius and clarity of expression. Of course, we all know Newt, all too well. We've seen the divorces, the questionable business deals, the whole nine yards, and we've seen it in HD for 16 years. The simple fact is the average person just does not relate to Newt and the insipid national media has only animosity for this rare genius.

But history may well yet have it's role to play in the 2012 Iowa Caucuses and history breaks for Newt. The lunacy of the Obama fiscal policy coupled with the inflationary incompetence of the Bernanke monetary policy has taken the already weakened economy of January 2009 from troubled to terrifying. We are perched on the edge of hyper inflation and the potential for a Jimmy Carter type of depression-years of slow/no growth, massive unemployment, full collapse of most large industries, etc... Similarly, we are one big explosion away from the War on Terror becoming WW III for real. The bad guys still want to kill us. Our current President appears content to appease Iran, and that may leave a big war in Iran as the only option to contain the mullah's nuclear ambitions by the time the next President takes office in January of 2013.

If the bottom falls out of the world, and we are in a depression at home or a big shooting war in Iran or elsewhere, Iowans, like Americans everywhere, may be so frightened that they will overlook all those personal traits of Newt's that they have been taught to dislike and give the really smart guy a chance.

The other players, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, John Thune and dreamers everywhere, appear to be auditioning for the number two spot (or perhaps a Fox News program) as they journey through Iowa.   The two governors, Pawlenty and Daniels, have particularly good stories to tell, and both will hopefully play a big role in the nation's future. (Pawlenty probably will never be President but he could do the world a lot of good by eliminating either of the two socialist Senators that befoul Minnesota's Congressional delegation.) That future just isn't going to be POTUS XVL.

History may prove me wrong; it does happen you know, albeit infrequently and they do play the games on the field and not the odds maker's offices. This game should be exciting.

Why can't Republicans learn the power of language?

2010-11-11T16:53:00.000-06:00

What the hell is with us? GOP politicians, pundits and partisans so utterly surrender the rhetorical high ground to the LSDs that it makes me pull out my hair.

Why are we debating the "Bush tax cuts"? W cut taxes but those reduced tax rates are now the current, existing, real and actual tax rates. Why don't we say "Bush tax rates"? The difference is huge. The former language concedes that somehow Congress is considering a further reduction in tax rates when, in fact, just the opposite is true.

Why do we ever say "health care reform"? The LSDs aren't reforming the health care system. Changing yes, but certainly not reforming. Nothing is done to reconnect the concepts of patient and consumer; nothing is done to expand the supply of health care; and nothing is done to clean up the massive fraud inherent in virtually all federal spending. Simply put, we should always describe the concept of Obamacare or other expanded federal involvement in the health services industry for what it is, "socialized medicine" because that simply put, is what it is. Everyone likes the concept of reform so why do we concede that concept when it is both inaccurate and deceptive during the health care financing debates?

Our culture war is being fought with words, thank God, so let's improve the quality of our ammunition.

Chelgren Update: Victory in Court limits post election voting.

2010-11-04T19:13:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I argued a case in the District Court in and for Wapello County, the Honorable Richard Meadows presiding, on behalf of the Mark Chelgren campaign.

The Democrat Auditor took the position that she could open the outer envelope of an absentee ballot to determine the date on the affidavit and, if that date was on or before November 1, proceed to count the ballot.

A Chet Culver era Secretary of State manual seemed to indicate that the election officials could ignore the statutory requirements that any ballot received after election day could only be opened if it bore some indicia of a postmark. The statute is, of course, plain and controlling. The significance is equally obvious. The difference between a 25/25 Senate-where our new LG breaks ties-provides us with a chance to redefine the state of Iowa.

Adam Gregg and Brian Rickert kicked off the show with a damn fine brief on behalf of the Chelgren campaign that was filed earlier today. I appeared at 1:00 p.m. Two and a half hours later-the GOP won a major battle.

Our argument was on point and I never felt the result was in doubt. The local Democrat County Attorney also demonstrated substantial integrity by acknowledging the plain language of IC 53.17 and its obvious application to the facts at hand.

Whether the local Dems (almost all of whom I know personally) would have actually cheated or not is, of course, not the point. The law was applied and the public can have a greater level of confidence in the integrity of the outcome.

As it stands now, that outcome is a tied Senate and an even greater opportunity to reverse the tide of Eurosocialism than heretofore thought possible exists.

At least until the recount.

Election 2010: opportunities gained and lost.

2010-11-03T13:16:00.003-05:00

First thought, we kicked ass. We whipped the Labor/socialist/Democrat coalition in almost every political market. We took Congressional seats not held by Republicans in decades and legislative chambers and governorships in huge electoral college states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Even where the LSDs held on they had to expend enormous political, material and financial capital. Now they are in the minority, the LSD will have a hard time replenishing what they just spent in all three categories. With Republicans controlling redistricting, the burden of minority will be further weighed by less friendly electorates and some geographically generated civil war.

We stopped the Obama agenda from further impoverishing our population and creating even further terror among the nation's investors, employers and tax payers. However bad the economy now is, at least the economic apocalypse that would have followed LSD retention of Congress is no longer a certainty. It might still happen because the progressives jammed decades of ludicrous policy into their brief period of complete control, but it might also now be avoidable.

We also have a huge and historic opportunity, both here in Iowa and "right round" the nation to not just slow but reverse the incremental but heretofore inexorable drift to European socialist democracy. We can send any policy we from House to the Senate. If the Dems kill it in the Senate we have have a clear issue. If the Dems are co opted on the proverbial road to Damascus and support the GOP agenda, so much the better as we get good policy and at least some of the credit for that good policy. By keeping it simple, offering clear and terse legislation (e.g. prohibit funding Obamacare; prohibit collective bargaining for public employees, etc...) that bright line the differences between a traditional and conservative country and the progressive liberal concept of radical change we drive the debate. BHO and LSDs in the Senate will fight to the death on those types of issues, and many more. We just send 'em up something every day or two and let them politically die for their bizarre and historically failed ideas. KISS!

The LSDs are not going to abandon the radical agenda. If anything they will be more radicalized. The massacre of the Blue Dogs (also true locally) means the survivors are more likely true radicals who have no intention of compromising. Those surviving LSD legislators are from safe districts and are allowed thereby the luxurious and fortuitous convergence of personal job security and ideological commitment. If the reader heard Harry Reid, Andrew Cuomo or BHO himself in the last 24 hours you know those remaining radicals recognize that the two competing cultures living in this country cannot coexist forever and they intend to pursue any means of political or legal power to ensure the progressive Eurosocialiast ideology is irreversibly implanted in this country.

Les bon temps!

On the other hand, we blew an opportunity for bigger gains. Almost every big loss last night were in races where we lost control of the dialogue by ignoring our best arguments. Our primary failure was being drawn off target by the volume, intensity and loathsomeness of LSD personal attacks. Almost uniformly our defeated candidates failed to confront the attacks, much less counter attack thereby turning the issue on the slanderer. Our successful candidates addressed the voters about specific issues, including rebuttal of the attacks, in a direct and sensible way-no tag lines or code. We lost where we failed to drill the current crises into the voter thereby allowing the LSD to personalize the issue. Given the success the politics of personal destruction provided in 2010 the attacks will only get more vile in 2012 so we'd better have a response by then; and that response is not going to come from finding "angelic" candidates 'cuz that critter just don't exist.

Our get out the vote program is still very broken in the urban areas of most of the country. We lost too many Senate races where the polls showed Republican leads. The reason is simple: notwithstanding lip service to the contrary the Republican apparatus both nationally and locally have demonstrated an unwillingness to invest the time and resources in building local party organizations in highly urban areas. We can fix this problem but it task is not glamorous but the high dollar donors need to get much more involved in local politics if they want a pro business governing Republican majority in Iowa or the larger United States. Only a fully staffed full time political operation can match the SEIU, AFSCME, NEA et al get out the vote machines in urban America.

If we use our heads we can really cripple the progressive cause and set them back for a generation. Or, as we did from 2002-2006, we can misread our mandate and return to the past bad practices of enriching the already rich while indulging in ear marks and crony capitalism at the expense of those in the middle and the public will turn us out in two or four years when they are no longer done.

Examine the Congressional results from 1880-1956 and you will see just exactly what I mean.

I also thought of BHO himself as the results filed by. My thoughts lead me to quote the smartest man to ever attend Harvard law school, a beatified celestial who once modestly promised to cool the Earth and make the waters recede, a man whose certitude was so unlimited the he messianically proclaimed himself to be the savior for whom generations of Americans had been waiting, "elections have consequences", and brother so does this one.

Final Predictions and Leonard Boswell is a ....

2010-11-01T17:54:00.001-05:00

... nasty, stupid, deceitful, disgusting seeping pustule on the unwiped ass of the body politic. For years I've taken the position that Leonard is a typical bank bencher, votes with the Labor/sociaist/Democrat leadership but is otherwise not a bad guy.

Wow, have I been wrong.

Well, they say times of struggle reveal but do not make character. Boswell has had a hell of a struggle in this campaign. The struggle reveals Leonard Boswell to be an arrogant, stupid, old man whose entire adult life in politics has been spent dividing people along lines of class, age and color. Now having run probably the most vile and dishonest campaign ever seen in this usually pretty civil state Boswell has hit a new lowest low. Today's new Boswell radio spot, in which voices of women in distress are played and false accusations of abuse are spoken is so over the top that even I am shocked-and since I'm pretty cynical and don't shock easily, that's a mouthful.

If this Democrat campaign of lies, distortion and ad hominem doesn't awaken Republicans to the new politics of the 21st Century perhaps the patient is dead. Now, get ready for the cheating tomorrow and thereafter.

Assuming that Democrats are unable to steal more than a handful of seats in the House and the margins in Alaska, Illinois, West Virginia, Nevada and Washington are outside a mandatory recount-as we know from the clown up north (Al Franken) Democrats typically take precincts 90/10 in such recounts-the official TRS prediction is:

House 248 GOP 187 LSD GOP + 71
Senate 51 GOP 49 LSD GOP + 10

Now, let's go make it happen!

Head stomping.

2010-10-26T20:34:00.000-05:00

Well, the violent leftists who have wrought such havoc and danger at GOP events for years just ran into a good ole' boy from Kentucky who apparently did not get the memo that Democrats can scream down Republicans, throw pies at Republicans, throw filth at Republican convention delegates, and generally disregard even the pretense of civility and decorum while Republicans are supposed to turn the other cheek like a gentle lamb of God.

So, after a paid MoveOn (authors of the interesting Zen, "violence in the name of peace is not violence") operative, followed by fellow travelers, bursts through crowd to abruptly rush a private citizen running for federal office (kind of like the way RFK was shot) is stopped by the prompt, and rather enthusiastic, intervention of another private citizen the liberals are the first to screech about violence and hate. Having attended the 2008 RNC and thereby provided a first hand look at the extent of the violent threat posed by these LSD radicals I'm reminded of an old lyric by Sir Elton John.

"God is dead and the war's begun".

It appears it has.

Polling distortion: lies, damn lies and statistics

2010-10-20T19:14:00.000-05:00

Nothing more surely presages defeat than lying to oneself. Whether its Adolf Hitler crouching in his Berlin bunker moving pins on maps to represent the movement of armies that no longer existed or Baghdad Bob broadcasting American defeat as the American juggernaut rolled across Baghdad International Airport, knowing self delusion is rarely followed by victory.

The recent spate of public released polling data that shows the Republican polling advantage in Senate races to be shrinking shares a level of credibility with Baghdad Bob.

Some polling services, Quinnipiac, Survey USA and especially Rasmussen and Gallup, for various reasons, have historically closely tracked elections, with projections closely predicting results. Your side may not always look good in those polls but those polls usually look good relative to the results.

Recently, the reliable liberal polling groups have begun distorting the running averages so as to create the impression that Democrats are closing across the country.

Take Colorado; the only poll showing Democrat Bennett leading is a two week old PPP-an openly Democrat polling group-that premises its sampling on Democrats turning out at same rate as 2008. Nothing in the current environment evidences the liklihood of such a heavy turnout in a midterm election, and nothing supports the assumption that Democrat turnout will exceed Republican turnout, much less reach the stratospheric Obama 2008 surge.

Pennsylvania is worse. Non partisan Rasmussen, who continuously updates its turnout model to reflect current partisan registration and voter intensity shows Pat Toomey up by a well beyond the margin of error of 10%. PPP, using the same unrealistically weighted turnout model places Joe Sestak up by one. The even stranger, and more secretive turnout projections of the Muhlenberg College Morning Call survey appears to assume turnout based on the last three elections rather than current registrations. Since '04, '06 and '08 saw progressively better Democrat turnout the model literally cherry picks the three best cycles possible for Democrats. That would be like predicting Republican turnout in Texas on 2000, '02 and '04. There's a word for that, ridiculous I think.

West Virginia might well be the most laughable of all. Rasmussen's state of the art turnout modeling shows Republican John Raese up 7%, beyond the margin of error. Two openly Democrat groups, Orion Strategies and the afore indicted PPP show Democrat Joe Manchin up ten and three respectively. Orion's methodology is unpublished and we already know the problems associated with the PPP model. Even CNN/Time-which has yet to err in a Republican direction although not openly partisan, shows a tie.

Baghdad Bob has nothing on these guys.

Right Path vs. Return to GOP economy: why yes, I think so.

2010-10-14T20:40:00.000-05:00

Democrats across the country are asking a simple question, do you want to return to the GOP economy. The President says it, the Vice President says it, Dingy Harry, Damascus Nancy and Leonard the Liar say it.. They say it several times a day, every day. The Labor/socialist/Democrats have a metatheme and they are clinging to it like grim death itself.

For once, the LSDs have correctly framed an issue. Does the voter want to follow the current economic trend or return the country to the days of 2001-2007, the dreaded Bush economy.

For once, the LSDs have fairly framed the issue. We ran the economy from 2001-2007. We owned it. The LSD ran on a platform of economic change: Don't believe me; do a Bing search of Democrat speeches and advertisements from the 2006 campaign. The LSDs and their supplicant liberal media complex persuaded the voting public that the Bush economy was the worst in 80 years.

So, let's take a look almost four years later.

When W began his second term the "official unemployment rate" (BLS U3) was 5.3%, lower than the average of any of the preceding three decades or the 30 year business cycle in total. The more significant, if lesser known, BLS U6 measurement of total under and unemployment stood at 9.3%. This was unemployment at a level that caused the Dems to describe a "jobless recovery". In the two following years under the Republican Congress and a Republican President the unemployment rate fell, yes, fell, to 4.6% what during Democrat leadership was described as full employment. The total under and unemployment also fell to 8.3%.

After two years of Democrat control of Congress and the budget and economic direction that come with it unemployment had risen to 7.7% and the U6 to 14% in January of 2009 , the month in which the dawning of Hope & Change promised better times for all. Now, some nineteen months later official unemployment stands at 9.6% and total under and unemployment at 17.1%.

This means that unemployment has doubled since the LSD took control of the nation's economy.

Now, look at spending. The Democrats spent the entire 2005-2006 cycle attacking the deficit. Indeed, there had been massive federal spending during W's first term. Now I would argue that the stock market collapse and recession in 2000-2001, 9.11 and fighting WW3 were the primary causes but, whatever the reason, too much tax money was being spent in January of 2005. So the bench mark for Democrat claims of excess spending should be fairly judged to be the $2.47 trillion dollar federal budget that produced a total deficit of $318.24 billion. By January of 2007 W and the GOP Congress had reduced-there again is that active verb of diminution where diminution is preferred-the total budget by about five percent to $2.27 trillion and halved the deficit to $160.94 billion.

Everyone who has passed 8th Grade Civics knows that Congress controls the budget. So what did Damascus Nancy and Dingy Harry do with those two Bush era budgets they controlled? Well, from January of 2007 to 2009 the Democrat Congress increased federal spending to $3.518 trillion. Now is that a fifty, sixty percent increase in federal spending? The deficit in those two years grew to $1.41 trillion. So stood the "Sitch" when the new age of enlightenment appeared in the bodily form of Barack Obama.

Barack, who we all know to be the most brilliant person who has occupied the home of Lincoln and Reagan, assured us that more federal "investment" was the answer to that catastrophic 4.6% unemployment. Spending began a rocket ship ride to Uranus in the age of O. Since January of 2009 total federal spending has grown to $3.721 trillion and the deficit to a staggering $1.555 trillion. Since the LSD took control of Congress the deficit has increased by almost one thousand percent.

Democrats love to rationalize the obvious but for God's sake people, how do the LSDs rationalize such rather obvious and irrefutable indicia of failure?

So yes, any thinking person should seek a return to the economy of 2005-2006.

Breaking News: Principal abandons medical insurance market and Obamacare/Boswell kill another 1500 Des Moines jobs.

2010-09-30T17:07:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's appearance in Des Moines by President Obama served as the howling dog prophesying the latest death blow inflicted on the Hawkeye State by the Labor/socialist/Democrat agenda. Today, Principal Financial Group publicly confirmed what many in Des Moines have long feared and sold its entire medical insurance product line. PFG's move is only the latest contraction in the national medical insurance economy, but its the first to really hammer Des Moines.

Approximately one thousand five hundred residents of greater Des Moines just had their jobs eliminated. Some may obtain employment with United Health Care after a short period of concern. Others will find still different future employment.

Where will the sixty year old man with prostate cancer secure employment? Where will 26 year old single mother of two or three children find a job in this economy? The answers to such questions are surely less than comforting to any who ask them. As bad as is the sudden twenty percent reduction in PFG's Iowa work force for the Des Moines economy, PFG's decision afflicts the entire collective "Iowa" with economic cost and social uncertainty.

Losing a major insurance provider means less competition and correspondingly higher prices for medical insurance for every person and business in Iowa. Higher medical insurance costs mean, of course, more employers eliminating insurance benefits for employees or increasing the employee share of the employers cost.

For those of good fortune who retain insurance, albeit at a higher cost, the loss of PFG's medical insurance products simply means less disposable income with which to grow those facets of Iowa's economy unrelated to health care. For the unfortunates who cannot obtain employment it means an expensive ride for everyone on a government funded welfare insurance program.

More people on government health care with greater costs to everyone else? If that sounds like exactly what we conservatives said would happen if Obamacare passed then you were listening, and not just to us. This sort of incrementalism is precisely the creeping socialism Tom Harkin promised as he celebrated the current iteration of Obamacare.

Bahamas Tommy's not on the ballot on November 2 but another Obamacare supporter, Congressman Leonard Boswell, is. In case you were wondering how to cast that Third District Congressional vote just remember who killed fifteen hundred jobs in Des Moines as surely as if he handed out the pink slips in person and, to paraphrase George C. Scott as George S. Patton, you'll know what to do.

Palin in Iowa: Sexy Sadie What Have You Done?

2010-09-17T23:02:00.003-05:00

Tonight's RPI Reagan Dinner gave further and compelling evidence of Sarah Palin's now undeniable celebrity star power. The event drew 1500 or so guests. The typical RPI event, with Newt, with Mitt, even with Huck, draws about 200 paid guests and 200 comped operatives. Every single aspect of the event was the same as every other RPI event: the venue, the format, the open lack of hospitality, the Ronald Reagan video (albeit with a new twist that somehow linked President Reagan with Warren G. Harding) even the ecumenically insensitive choice of entree`, roast pork on Rosh Hashanah. The only difference tonight was provided by the nuclear illumination of the taxpayer's revolution and its most powerful messenger.

As with the 2008 Republican National Convention, Sarah again expressed the 18th Century concepts of democracy and freedom in the language of the 21st Century.  While sitting in the crowd, however, my mind drifted toward the lyrics of the 20th Century's greatest lyricist, John Lennon. In 1968, the Walrus (who was not Paul) penned the words:

Oh, Sexy Sadie what have you done
You made a fool of everyone
You made a fool of everyone
Sexy Sadie ooh what have you done.

Sexy Sadie you broke the rules
You laid it down for all to see
You laid it down for all to see
Sexy Sadie oooh you broke the rules.

Much of the Mama Grizzly's speech was directed at motivating the small, constitutionally limited government "Tea Party" conservative wing of the GOP-and they were motivated. The Con-Con crowd left the hall in a state of exuberance.

The small government conservatives, most of whom have been purged from Iowa party involvement and the remaining co-opted or bullied, were ecstatic and left Hy-Vee Hall displaying more motivation than seen in these precincts since the halcyon days of W and 99.  More than a few such "fringers" were heard discussing their planned greater involvement in the Party. Unfortunately it was not the Republican Party they mentioned-it was the Tea Party.

Lennon's irony became irresistible because the very party "machine" that Sarah ridiculed provided the forum for their own ridicule-like the Bourbon monarchy summoning the Estates General in 1786. The more Sarah hammered the Republican establishment the more the corporatists, whose concept of politics is far more Rove that Reagan, displayed unease as Palin's call for revolution within the Republican Party became unmistakable. Revolution is never a good thing when one has held the reins of power for forty six years.

Sarah's advance team probably did not know that the party establishment provided a greater forum for a defeated Congressional primary candidate of its choosing, (Jim Gibbons) than it did the primary winner (Brad Zaun), and a winner who has the best chance to capture a Congressional seat we have not held in a decade at that. Nor did they know that the top of the ticket probably failed to carry the night's crowd in last June's primary. Palin's willingness to stick to her small government Con-Con message in the face of the archetypal establishment displays a candidate who, unlike the GOP establishment, is leading to win and not winning to lead. Perhaps such integrity provides the source of Sarah's celebrity.

Last fall RPI brought in Haley Barbour to bully and insult the Con-Cons. This spring the messenger injected enthusiasm into a new wave of political action and actors. History is turning a page and a powerful and charismatic woman holds the book.

That book, to again quote John Lennon, begins with the words "Power to the People, Power to the people right on.

Establishment Republicans: Physician heal thself!

2010-09-15T19:04:00.002-05:00

Forty million words have been written in the last eighteen hours about Christine O'Donnell's upset of soft core moderate Mike Castle in the Delaware Senate primary last night.

Among those words I have not seen from any Republican establishment figures is a call for other establishment figures to suck it up and support the party nominee.

Locally we have been treated to a parade of establishment types ranging from Mike Reagan to Haley Barbour, each demanding that fiscal, constitutional and social conservatives (about 80% of the party) need to pipe down, follow the leadership and stand in line to support the liberal top of our ticket here in Iowa. Of course, such demands beg the ultimate question of why?

If the answer is party loyalty then is that ideological promenade not designed to be bidirectional? Where are the party traffic cops when the conservative wins? Who appears to tell the disgruntled "mods" (an overwhelming statistical minority in the GOP) to "suck it up" and enthusiastically support the conservative winner? Des Moines and parts near by have recently seen Mark Rees and Jim Gibbons, the former publicly (at least courageously) and later privately (as is the way of the Des Moines oligarchy), have refused to support Brad Zaun. Where are the party leaders to publicly admonish these prodigal sons.

If the answer is something other than party loyalty then have we not just witnessed a display of nothing more noble than pure economic and political self interest? Such selfishness is not the clay upon which a long term coalition can be constructed.

Maybe we will see a similar parade through the streets of Dover. Thus far, not even Mike Castle's bitter and graceless public refusal to support the party nominee roused Haley or Mike to deliver the kind of public admonitions about Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment and our duty to defeat Democrats to the wayward and apparently ignorant masses of Republicans.

The American Thinker: A Picture Tells A Thousand Wars

2010-09-12T11:51:00.000-05:00

The great researchers over at American Thinker have once again provided a graph, arsing from the Obama Administration's own statistics, that expose the lie that Obamacare will reduce the cost of healthcare.

The graph is sourced to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Office of the Actuary.

Those damn facts; how dare they refute the oracular statements of the One for Whom We've All Been Waiting.

McNaughton's The Forgotten Man: Breathtaking

2010-09-08T19:05:00.003-05:00

A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words!

2010-09-03T11:31:00.000-05:00

Examine the graph and then ask yourself if you think the United States is more well educated, more prosperous, more secure from international attack and, most importantly, more free than we were relative to the rest of the word than we were in 1950?

U.S. vs. Arizona vs. U.N. vs. Reality (or how one should never be amazed)

2010-08-31T21:25:00.001-05:00

The latest example of the Labor/socialist/Democrat promotion and facilitation of illegal immigration and national self-denigration truly reaches, to paraphrase a CNN commentator's description of Iraq violence,"stratospheric" proportions.

First, it cannot be disputed that Arizona SB 1070 is less facially violative of American Constitutional due process and equal protections principles than the counterpart federal statute upon which Arizona modeled SB1070. Moreover, it cannot be disputed that SB 1070 provides state law enforcement actors no greater discretion to stop or detain an individual and request therefrom residency documentation than existing federal law provides federal law enforcement actors. The aforesaid present a tautology to only those who read and understand the English language (Queen's Own or otherwise) and perhaps, explain the absence of such discriminatory constitutional challenges brought in the Constitutional scholar in chief's law suit against the state of Arizona and SB1070.

Nor can the professional left (to borrow another liberal's turn of phrase) make a prima facie case of discriminatory application because, says Captain Obvious, the statute was enjoined before it became effective. In the absence of facial discrimination or discriminatory application there is simply no syllogism that supports a conclusion that SB 1070 is violative of substantive or procedural due process or equal protection under law.

Insofar as the Obama Administration has not asserted SB1070 is unconstitutional on due process or equal protection grounds in a forum of proper jurisdiction, to wit: a court in the United States of America one might find it odd that the Administration cited SB 1070 as an example of the United States itself violating international human rights standards.

Nor can the Administration seriously argue that international standards of immigration enforcement are more strict than American Constitutional standards because virtually every other country on earth provides its law enforcement far greater discretion to stop, detain and require proof of identity and lawful residency than do either SB 1070 or companion federal law. So what then could possibly explain the apparent legal absurdity of the Administration's citation of SB1070 as an example of a human rights abuse under international law?

Only two answers can possibly explain the Administration's conduct. The Administration could be yet indulging in that most vapid of conduct, self flagellation. Viewed in the most favorable light the Administration's belief that continued self-indictment will, through some tortured deviation of reason and history, come to love us for our faults. History almost universally teaches that admission of guilt typically hardens the animosity of a nation's enemies because the admissions create moral equivalency between the conduct of the contestants. We all know it best as the Oliver Stone's of the world equating the American use of nuclear weapons with Nazi genocide and aggression.

The Administration could be broadcasting in ultra high definition on an 84 inch monitor, a crystal clear signal that green light continues to illuminate the American border. This signal would be as unmistakable to narco and other genre of terrorists as it would be to the Mexican or Honduran immigrant looking for work and their generational shot at the American dream.

Neither reason logically excludes the other. Neither reason need be singularly motivational. While either or both of the foregoing conclusions could be true, no other motivation can reasonably explain the Obama Administration conduct.

What a clear example of the desperate need to generate racial disharmony that is keeping the unnatural alliance of immigrants and the Labor/socialist/Democrats (who are very much like the regimes that have brought poverty to most of Latin America) of 21st Century America.

Change...and Hope...are on the way

2010-08-31T18:20:00.000-05:00

It's 63 days until America becomes a better place. And as 9.5% of the workforce without a job anxiously awaits November, Barack Hussein Obama has just wrapped up a trip to Martha's Vineyard. He took a vacation. Again. For the ninth time in 18 months on the job.

I'm not sure if it's his affinity for doing nothing, as the country writhes in the throes of its greatest financial and social malaise since President Malaise himself sat in the Oval Office, that angers me the most. It might be his abject disdain for the fact that he's created every bit of this F-5 tornado of tumult...and doesn't give a God *amn (Thank you, Rev. Wright) about who's suffering because of it.

While millions sit unemployed this upcoming Labor Day weekend, BHO eats ice cream and enjoys syrupy photo ops.

While we labor under the yoke of a $13 trillion national debt, BHO goes on a bike ride. (Wearing a Fisher Price "My First Adult Bike Helmet" to boot. He looked as emasculated, as weak, as vulnerable in that photo as any bad photo of a president or politician I've ever seen. Kim Jong Il saw it and remarked, "Even I could kick his ass!"

I wonder at times if his Democrat minions in Congress have awakened to the reality that to him, they were a means to an end - useful dolts and nothing more. He got what he wanted - Obamacare, financial overhaul, the stimulus bill, Government Motors, and likely backdoor amnesty before January.

What did they get? More like, what are they going to get? For many of them it'll be a pink slip from their constituents. They can't get far enough away from him now; he is box office poison in a way that only Tom Cruise or Ben Affleck can appreciate. "We Are the Change We've Been Waiting For" has become "We Are the Failures Our Arrogance Has Created."

Of course, you won't find a single Leftist who'll admit that. That's Chapter One, Page One of their playbook, "We Can't Govern! And We Know It! But We'll Never Admit It!" Comedian Jerry Seinfeld stated last week that Obama has been a "good" president. He also went on to say that the Minnesota Timberwolves were a "good" NBA team, and that DeCoster Farms produced "good" eggs.

So BHO kicked it ruling-class style in the Northeast, less than a month after his wife's grotesque, taxpayer-undergirded junket to Italy. Life is good when you're the Prez and you don't care about anybody else. But as is always the case with intentional seismic social upheaval, there comes some unintentional (in Obama's case), unwanted developments. To wit:

The non-Left populace of this nation has rubbed its long-slumbering eyes awake. Lulled into semi-comatose governmental acquiescence for decades, Americans both conservative and independent have seen the in-your-face attacks on their preferred ways of life. They've seen their elected officials, put into office to represent their interests, give them the high hard one over and over as never before. And as their forefathers before them, they're finally taking these attacks on liberty seriously and fighting back. They're angry as never before, motivated to vote as never before, and November is going to be bloody for the Left as never before.

The 2008 election campaign, and the first two years of the Obama administration, removed once and for all the veil of objectivity of the media. You don't have to be conservative or a Republican to see the Leftist slant on the networks and in newspapers now. "Journolists" finally decided to drop all formal pretense and show us who they are. (This week it was revealed that 88% of the employees at the Big Three networks donated either to Obama or the Left during the 2008 campaign.)

As a result, CBS, NBC and ABC all continue to set new lows in nightly news viewership. There may not be a newspaper still printing in 10 years. Yet conservative talk radio (Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Levin, etc.) continues to boom in both listenership and profit, and Fox News continues to command viewers in a way that works the Left into a froth usually reserved for Jesus Christ.

Objectivity case in point: I loved how my RealSporer colleague, Kim Lehman, made national news last week when she questioned comments Obama made earlier in reference to his alleged Muslim faith, and the media - whose job was once to investigate - instead turned on the question asker. Allow me an analogy to illustrate this absurdity:

"President Nixon, did you have anything to do with the Watergate break-in?"

Journalists: "What a mean-spirited, bigoted, intolerant statement! Shame on you!"

Personally, I could think of worse things to feel shame about...like taking vacation every two months while the house is on fire and your extended family is inside.

November is on its way, folks...

A momenty of clarity

2010-08-29T10:16:00.001-05:00

In watching the Beck v. Sharpton 8/28 rallies and the coverage provided by all media of the rallies I experienced a true moment of clarity.

Conservatives, myself included, indict the Labor/socialist/Democrats with the words they speak and write.

The race rage employed by race baiters is based entirely, not on the words conservatives employ but on what they claim we mean. Our language is indicted as "code" for some hidden meaning that can only be discerned in the context of a history that does not exist.

Now that is going the extra mile to peddle division.

Competing Rallies: Faith, Hope & Charity 600,000-Anger, Hate & Envy 3000

2010-08-28T15:43:00.002-05:00

Glen Beck's "8/28 Restoring Honor" and Al Sharpton's "Reclaim the Dream" counter rally went head to head in Washington D.C. on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Hundred's of other publications have the competing quotes and there isn't much point in simply restating the same here.

But pictures sure do tell the story of a thousand words.

Beck's message of faith, hope and charity drew a live crowd in excess of 600,000. The estimates are based on the mall capacity in the two long lines from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial at approximately 300,000. The fully occupied area beyond the two interior tree lines, particularly the left interior tree line, is estimated at as many as twice the number of those 300,000 inside the tree lines.

Beck's 8/28 Rally

Sharpton's message of anger, hatred and envy drew about 3000 at a local high school football stadium.

Comprehensive Crowd Images Unavailable

Now who are the extremists again?

Restoring Honor Rally Live Stream: A Must Watch

2010-08-28T10:55:00.001-05:00

What a great display of patriotism and the spirit of awakening to our American greatness. As Beck says, its the beginning of the end of the time of darkness. This great display of patriotism is also why we will win the upcoming elections in a landslide of historic repudiation of the Democrat socialist nanny state world view.

The question then becomes will we be worthy of the Americans who give us that landslide, or merely a red mutation of the blue plague that has so sickened the heart and soul of the Republic?

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Kim Lehman on Obama's Islamic Faith; What's the Big Deal?

2010-08-24T12:29:00.000-05:00

Kim Lehman continues to fill the biggest of gaps in the Republican Party-leadership. Leadership is not pandering to the public. Leadership is not dissembling in the face of actual facts so as to avoid offense.

Leadership comes from addressing problems and persuading others to agree with one's perspective on those problems. Barack Obama's cultural and religious heritage is among the biggest of problems endangering the American people.

Kim has apparently kicked up quite a kerfuffle with a tweet that Barack is a Muslim. The professional left has responded in typical fashion, with shrieks and howls of condemnation and personal attack, all of which seem based on nothing more tangible than ad hominem. Kim herself puts it best. "I don't understand the big deal. Unlike most Islamic countries, that don't allow the practice of any religion but Islam, we do allow freedom of worship in this country. Do the progressives think that there is something so wrong with Islam that following that faith is insulting?"; was the question Kim posed earlier today.

Kim's comments are based in actual fact-a frightening thing indeed for the PC progressive crowd. "I didn't confuse my Christian faith with Islam", Kim added, "it was the President who said described his Muslim faith, until he was corrected by George Stephanopoulos, who is also a member of the Obama media team". It is the President who frequently refers to the Holy Qur'an in the same manner as practicing Christians refer to the Holy Bible". The reader should not forget that the President was identified as a Muslim when he was registered for school in the strict Islamic nation of Indonesia.

While no one is privy to the President's most intimate thoughts, as in to whom and how he prays, we do know his cultural history. Through all of his formative years he resided with Muslims, attended Muslim schools and practiced Islam. Barack's Christian roots date no farther back than his entry into the radical Black Liberation Theology he encountered at the Trinity UCC in Chicago, where he found the American hating racist Jeremiah Wright to be a worthy mentor.

The import of the debate is whether Barack's Islamic cultural influences are so pronounced that he finds the Islamic threat to be a product of this nation's malevolence rather than a fifteen hundred year jihad to convert the world into an Islamic caliphate. Whether it is ambivalence to the Iranian nuclear threat or the isolation of Israel everything about the foreign policy of the Obama Administration indicates that the President is, in fact, either sympathetic to the objectives of Islamic extremism and the concept of dhimmitude or incapable of recognizing the evil threat it poses for the Western world.

Barack Obama became President because our party, acting under the guidance of our temporary leader John McCain, refused to discuss Barack's radical cultural and religious roots. That was an utter failing of leadership. Hat's off to RNC member Kim Lehman for not continuing the absurd politically correct refusal to face the dangerous facts of the Obama experience.

Why is Tom Miller hiding from Brenna Findley?

2010-08-22T11:24:00.003-05:00

Brenna Findley
Future AG

We here at TRS learned yesterday that 24 year incumbent Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller has refused to debate 34 year old challenger Brenna Findley.

While Findley is a tough and articulate little bulldog (a professional compliment among lawyers not a physical metaphor) one would think that a 66 year old incumbent who has spent his entire life in politics and is seeking a seventh term as AG would not view Findley as much of a threat. Miller is either the operational definition of a political sissy or something much worse is afoot.

So what does Miller's refusal to openly debate say about both Miller and the party and movement he represents?

Miller and McCarthy
(Seen only among only friends)

Miller's refusal to engage in political debate is another example of the "21st Century" Labor/Socialist/Democrats' reliance on paid advertising and reliable media (news and entertainment) and academic allies to project their propaganda without the risk of defending their record in an environment they do not control. Such conduct is not that of a party that believes its record to be defensible or one that respects the democratic process upon which our nation is premised.

Why and what is Miller hiding?

Blago Guilty: Will he go Joe Valachi?

2010-08-17T18:34:00.004-05:00

Unholy threesome?

Pat Fitzgerald is embarrassed again with the conviction of Rod Blagojevich on one count of lying to the federal government-something most people think should be legal in the first place.

The Obama Administration utilized the nation's most ruthless, vindictive and flamboyant prosecutor to nail Blagojevich, just as Rahm personally told Blagovich it would, and destroyed a governor's life with a massive 24 count federal indictment. Instead of the crime spree Fitzgerald alleged the government proved only that Blagojevich told the FBI that he did not track campaign contributions when he arguably did such tracking.

Much like Fitzgerald's even more outrageous prosecution of Scooter Libby, Fitzgerald's prosecution of Blagojevich became the criminal version of mere champerty and a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. Don't forget, long before the conversation between Fitzgerald's agents and Libby occurred, Fitzgerald knew that the substantive crime of disclosing Valerie Plame's confidential CIA role never happened.

Two of the biggest words in the Queen's own are now in play: What next?

Fitzgerald says he is going back to re-try the twenty three substantive counts he failed to prove the first time he got to fire at Blago (just an aside, there's room for legal reform here if any Republican wanted to claim it). Such an approach does not leave Blagojevich many options. How will Blago respond?

If Blago's done in Illinois politics, and even Blago surely knows that he is, how then does he find redemption? The perfect model is provided by another mid level mobster, Joe Valachi. Think of the dirtiest of dirt little Rodney has on Chicago pols like Rahm "the Impaler" and Mayor Richard "the Deuce" Daley? If Blago sings he can provide both the operatic overture and the fat lady for the operatic production of the crime spree known as "Chicago Style".

LIttle Green Footballs: Demented, dishonest or both?

2010-07-25T16:11:00.000-05:00

A notorious leftie blog, Little Green Footballs, published a post today as part of the Barbarossa scale attack on conservative media following the racist-turned victim-turned racist Shirley Sherrod story. The author argued that the conservative tactic to rebut criticism is to find a minor or unimportant factual error in the liberal critique. The LGF statements come about as close as liberals ever get to admitting that there arguments fundamentally lack any reliance on or commitment to factual reality.

The "irrelevant or minor point" of factual reality that the Little Green attack on Fox News targets is actually the entire body of exculpatory evidence. Two well established facts are issue dispositive.

First, Fox aired the story after the Obama Administration had forced Sherrod to resign. Second, the custodian of the entire video, the NAACP and its aptly named President, Ben Jealous, had supported the Administration and decried the Sherrod statements before Fox aired the video.

Only the primal scream of emotion that the progressive liberal substitutes for reason could convict a conservative of racism for truthfully broadcasting a story that an employee of the government had already been fired for racist statements that the employee's specific boss had already said were unacceptable and a major non profit-who was the custodian of the entire original speech and in the audience when the speech was made thereby knowing the the context of the remarks-had already echoed the DoAg's position. The number of past tense verbs is not coincidental.

As I like to say, you really can't make this stuff up.

Journ-olist, Shirley Sherrod and Economic Failure: A wild mid-July

2010-07-25T13:48:00.002-05:00

Summer is supposed to be a slow news season. Congress, even with approval ratings of 11%, vacations, well, liberally. The President, with an environmental crisis gripping the Gulf Coast, foreign policy crises brewing in North Korea and Iran, and the economy continuing to crumble, busies himself in what appear to be an endless stream of social events. Reporters take time from their beats to read the latest Columbia University apology for Iranian terrorism or the Washington Post's most recent disclosure of military and security secrets.

The real world intervened in the week of July 17-24, 2010. The week started with the continuing discussion of the sinking economy and the Labor/Socialist/Democrat response. Notwithstanding the daily record federal deficits, the L/S/D Congress refused to find less than one third of one percent of its budget to transfer to unemployment benefits. If the unemployment debate fails to convince the voter that the L/S/D is addicted to deficit spending they cannot be convinced. A reasonable person could debate the source of the addiction but not the addiction itself.

Undoubtedly the urgency to continue the lunacy of federal spending arose from a preview of Friday's White House announcement that unemployment will continue at or above 9% through the end of the Obama first (only?) term. Since the unemployment rate has increased almost every month since Democrats seized control of Congress in the 2006 election the obvious answer in L/S/D intellectual circles is do more of the same and expect different results.

Then the Journolist scandal took another more bizarre turn. As disclosed in the prestigious Christian Science Monitor, the leftist cabal of journalists, who actually did conspire to slant news coverage over the last three years, went so far as give recent voice to the Alinsky maxim to personally isolate and viciously attack the conservative opposition.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, ‘Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.

So what is a liberal progressive to do when the facts are against him-attack. They certainly are not going to discuss record budget deficits and an unemployment rate that, after four years of ever more socialism and government control, is higher than at any point in his hated predecessor's eight years in the White House?

Then the gift that keeps on giving, Shirley Sherrod, became cable news legend. Now, the Sherrod tale has taken its almost inevitable turn. The L/S/D mainstream was out in force this morning, on the attack, shrieking racist at every Republican or conservative institution they could identify. Although Sherrod's original March speech ended with a strange and certainly racial attack on Republicans and conservatives, and her response to the Breitbart video and the Administration's cowardly response, disclose Sherrod's willingness to race bait if not vocalize actual racism, the L/S/Ds portray her as a victim of overt Republican racism.

The L/S/Ds cannot dispute the fact that Fox News did not mention Sherrod or air the Breitbart video until after the White House had fired her, and the NAACP had supported that termination yet they attack Fox News for reporting the firing. The L/S/Ds cannot dispute the fact that the Sherrod video shows the NAACP delegates demonstrating approval for the most racially virulent parts of Sherrod's speech yet they attack Andrew Breitbart as a racist (Sherrod herself) for airing the video. The L/S/Ds cannot produce a single second of video or audio footage, or a single independent witness who heard any black congressman the "N" bomb or any other racial epithet yet they attack the Tea Party movement as racist and repeat the story as if it were true (Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts). The L/S/Ds cannot dispute the facts of the Black Panther case and do not deny a policy to overtly discriminate in prosecutorial decision yet they attack those who revealed the racial bias as racists for exposing race based discrimination.

One does not require the inductive genius of Hercule Poirot to see the theme, or to flatter with imitation Anita Dunn's newly minted word "metatheme". So, let us take a page from Steve King's playbook and do not back down in the face of this age old tactic by admitting some horrible imaginary crime in the hopes the L/S/D media and political elites will reward our cowardice with praise.

Matt Schultz: Secretary of State candidate drops another great web video.

2010-07-23T16:13:00.001-05:00

Matt Schultz is out with another great internet ad.

Matt has a good campaign plan in a tough race. Pass this around, Matt deserves our best conservative efforts.

John Kerry-Floating Pharisaism

2010-07-23T15:51:00.003-05:00

John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator who claims to reside in Massachusetts for purposes of federal campaign law, purports to reside in Rhode Island for purposes of berthing his $7 million yacht.

The Rhode Island residency allows Sen. Kerry to avoid paying Massachusetts' special sales tax on boats, a personal savings of $437,500 to John Fn Kerry.

Much like the avaricous Kennedy clan railing against oil companies while owning among the most predatory of such companies and blocking windmills offshore their beachfront estates, Kerry's hypocrisy apparently recognizes no restraint.

You seriously cannot make up these characters.

Guest Article: Mark Leonard - Strong Renewable Electric Standard Strengthens Iowa and America

2010-07-22T15:35:00.000-05:00

Iowa has a big stake in passage of a strong renewable electricity standard to grow the market for wind generated electricity.

Mark Leonard

Iowa ranks in the top five among the 50 states for projected new jobs from increased wind electric generation, according to the US Department of Energy. A federal commitment to producing more of America’s electricity from renewable sources would make Iowa a major electricity exporter to other state and revitalize our rural communities.

Renewable energy will almost certainly be at the top of the agenda now that Congress has returned from its July 4 recess. The question is whether its action will be sufficient to address the challenges confronting America.

The legislation that has heretofore advanced from the Energy Committee would require that just 11 – 12 percent of the nation's electricity come from wind and other renewable sources by 2020. Congress could just as well stay out on vacation. We’ll reach 11-12 percent without the legislation, according to Department of Energy analysis. America and Iowa deserves better.
The US Department of Energy study 20 Percent Wind by 2020 concluded that ramping up wind generation to 20 percent of the nation's electricity would create over 9,000 permanent jobs in Iowa – many in rural Iowa. Seven times that many year-long jobs would be created during wind turbine construction.

Payments to Iowa farmers with turbines on their land and property tax payments to Iowa schools and local governments on wind turbines together would total over $140 million every year.

Thus, Iowa has much to gain from a strong standard for renewable energy production. Much as the renewable fuel standard boosted Iowa’s economy by growing the market for ethanol, a renewable electric standard could boost the entire state economy by prompting growth of wind farms, jobs and income across Iowa.

The future of wind energy is bright. It has made dramatic gains in efficiency over the last two decades. And it is poised to become a major economic force. But just like railroads and other major industries needed public backing at their formative states, the wind industry needs the assurance of a market to justify large critical investments in transmission lines. A strong renewable electric standard provides that market.

All of American would benefit. Renewable energy is a critical strategic industry. China and other economic competitors are making major investments in wind. We cannot sit back and allow them to take the lead and capture the manufacturing jobs and economic growth that come with innovation in the technologies of the future. Recent events in the Gulf are further evidence of the wisdom and cost effectiveness of investing in renewable and clean energy sources.

Furthermore, renewable domestic sources of energy like Iowa wind make America more secure by reducing our vulnerability to foreign nations and energy price increases.

Wind energy is practical. The Department of Energy study, published by the Bush Administration, concluded that building a strong national transmission system would minimize problems from variability in wind and wind generation. And wind electricity is affordable. The study found we could pay the cost of the new turbines and transmission lines with savings in fuel costs, plus about 50 cents per U.S. household per month. The cost is much less than attempting to maintain our reliance on foreign sources of energy and providing security for those sources.

That's a small price to pay for revitalizing rural Iowa, creating jobs, and strengthening America’s competitiveness and ensuring our energy security.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Mark Leonard is President of Leo-Land, Inc., a diversified Iowa corporation with interests in real estate, cattle, renewable energy, banking and insurance via the wholly owned subsidiaries AgCom Financial Services and AgCom Insurance Agency. Mark has been in the Purebred Limousin cattle business since 1969, merchandising live animals and frozen semen and embryos to customers in 20 countries and on 5 continents. Leonard Limousin, Inc. is one of the oldest Limousin cattle breeding firms in the United States.

AgCom Financial Services provides underwriting, analysis, consulting and loan servicing programs for financial institutions in Iowa and South Dakota. AgCom was formed in 2004 by Mark Leonard as a way to provide services to financial institutions and Agriculture and Commercial loan customers.

Mark spent nearly 20 years serving on the board and several years as Chairman of the Iowa Agricultural Development Authority, a position appointed by the Governor of Iowa. IADA administers the Beginning Farmer Loan program. Mark was instrumental in developing the Loan Participation Program which enabled the use of IADA funds for direct loans to qualifying farm operations.

Mark has also served on the board of National Association of Rural Rehabilitation Corporation, an organization that serves as liaison among state governments and the USDA to develop programs to serve the financial needs of rural America. Those programs include loan guarantee programs, rural housing loans, student loans, value-added manufacturing facilities, direct loans to farmers, and aid for market development.

For many years Mark has been active in Republican Party activities, serving as County Chair for the local GOP, and as an advisor on numerous campaigns, including the National Policy Advisory Council for President George H.W. Bush.

Mark has earned numerous awards and honors over the years. He was named as the youngest Eagle Scout in the state of Iowa in 1969 and eventually earned the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Eagle Palms. Mark was honored in 1986 by the Iowa Farm Bureau as the winner of the Iowa Discussion Meet and represented Iowa at the American Farm Bureau Convention. He was also named as the Outstanding Young Farmer of Northwest Iowa by Farm Bureau the same year. He is listed in Who’s Who Among Business Professionals and has been named a member of Outstanding Young Men of America.

Shirley Sherrod: Don't step back...

2010-07-21T22:30:00.000-05:00

... not one inch. Thirty hours in, the strange case of Shirley Sherrod's "racist-turned victim-turned racist" has shown every one of the fractions of intellectual inches upon which rest the modern liberal/progressive ideology.

Andrew Breitbart

First, the fundamental premise of the original video release is unrefuted by the progressive victim chorus. The audience, including the aptly named NAACP President Ben Jealous, are clearly sympathetic to the initial, blatantly racist Sherrod admissions. The cynical hypocrisy behind the NAACP's provably false attacks on Tea Party activists is rendered irrefutable by the conduct of the NAACP convention delegates themselves-including, did I mention, current President Ben Jealous.

Shirley Sherrod

Second, Sherrod lifts her speech into some pretty lofty heights, but finishes with some pretty divisive, although not overtly racist commentary about Republicans. Sherrod's partisan commentary clearly violates multiple federal statutes and regulations that prohibit partisan activity through the instrumentality of federal employment. Sherrod probably should have been terminated for such misconduct as violations of federal law in federal office, but was rather peremptorily terminated for the mistaken charge of racism.

Third, Ben Jealous has even less credibility than Tom Vilsack. Tough call, I know. Jealous now claims to have been snookered by Fox News into a shrill denunciation of Sherrod shortly after the video broke. Jealous' statements are facially preposterous. The reader might think the fact that Sherrod was fired before Fox aired the story is dispositive of Jealous' lie; but its not. Even stronger arguments exist against Jealous' excursion into disingenuity.

Jealous himself was in the room for the Sherrod speech and personally knew of its entire contents and the context in which it appeared. If Mr. Jealous and I share a short attention span and a chatty disposition, as I expect we do, he might have missed some of the Sherrod speech. Unlike me, or Bill O'Reilly, or Andrew Breitbart, Ben Jealous had access to a video recording of the Sherrod speech because the NAACP was, honest to God, the custodian of entire video recording at all times relevant hereto.

Ex Governor Vilsack, as SofAg, fired Sherrod without a hearing, as he has now admitted. Whatever one might conclude about Sherrod, and I'll get to that one, firing someone based on a thirty second Internet video without a hearing is pretty base and cowardly behavior. The message to the Democrat voting base is also clear, that bus coming up behind you does not plan to brake when it reaches you.

Finally, Sherrod herself is either the willing tool of the Chicago style cynicism of this White House or the hate filled ogre she described herself as having been some twenty six years ago. After being rehired by the Department of Agriculture Sherrod went on air with Media Matters and delivered a diatribe of racial invective at Fox News. The Sherrod diatribe against Fox was and is utterly unsupported by any objective fact. See Ben Jealous, above.

Now, having been caught in a trick bag entirely of its own creation, the liberal hate machine has fired up accusations of racism against all who air or raise the foregoing now obvious facts. This is going to get ugly; if they fire a Shirley Sherrod because they fear her story might appear on Beck what will they do to those who demonstrate the multiplicity of this Administration's deficiencies in character that are revealed by the Sherrod episode.

So, remember "Not racist, not violent and no longer silent". We cannot allow the liberal/progressive Journo-list to canonize Sherrod, like the lying rats Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, nor camouflage her, like Jeremiah Wright. Rather we need just need to stand our ground, stick to the facts and the only logical inferences that arise therefrom. We will not then be silenced by the false accusations of racism and the liberal thought police that enforce the theocracy of political correctness.

Shirley Sherrod: Liberal hypocricy on steroids (but not in the way you think)

2010-07-20T19:16:00.001-05:00

Shirley Sherrod became the latest victim of the cynical politics of racism generally employed by American progressive socialists and honed to a killing edge by the current Administration. The facts are not disputed.

Former Department of Agiculture employee Shirley Sherrod was tape recorded boasting that she had deprived a Georgia farmer of public benefits because, and only because, he was white. The quotes were accurate. Within about four hours of the video release former Iowa Governor, now SoAg Tom Vilsack forced Sherrod's resignation.

The context of the remarks then take the story in an unexpected direction. Sherrod was using the story to describe her personal growth; the tape was old and the white farmer involved became Sherrod's friend and Sherrod the savior of his farm. For his part, Andrew Breitbart indicated the video release had nothing to do with Shirley Sherrod but was video evidence of NAACP convention delegates approving the early, overtly racist, remarks before they heard Sherrod's sincere renunciation of the racism.

After being caught red handed engaging in racially motivated prosecutorial decisions in the Black Panther case; the even worse policy statements that gave rise to the Black Panther case and the Journo-list concealment of Jeremiah Wright, the Administration has such little confidence in its own integrity that Shirley Sherrod, who turns out to have been a fine public servant, was fired without any opportunity to provide any defense to the charge of racism. Secretary Vilsack has refused to rectify the injustice and rehire Sherrod.

In an attempt to conceal the most openly racial Presidential Administration since progressive icon Democrat Woodrow Wilson embraced the Ku Klux Klan the petard did not just hoist the Bizzaro World new Jim Crow, but then exploded again to expose the true cynicism at this Administration's core.

Is this what they mean by "social justice"?

Defense wins championships...but offense wins the war

2010-07-17T13:24:00.000-05:00

I grew up in Mason City, Iowa, which many of you know was home for a few days this week to the Obama-Hitler-Lenin billboard that wound up drawing nationwide attention, most notably on the Drudge Report. It's a tough, blue-collar town chock-full of men's men. I'm proud to have been raised there...it molded me into who I am today.

But within hours of the billboard going viral, it was covered up, bowed by media pressure. And once more, conservatives yielded our freedom of speech rights to those who continually beat us over the head and shoulders with theirs.

Why we have allowed this template to be executed time and again during my adulthood is a mystery I may never come to fully grasp.

My adversary says something I dislike. I say something they dislike. They claim offense, and get their powerful friends in the media to agree with them and they vilify me to no end. So I retract my statement. Their version of the subject stands. I look foolish and defeated. They win.

What the hell is going on here?

How many times was George Bush compared to Hitler during his eight-year administration? Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not compare the Tea Party to Nazis? Did CNN's Anderson Cooper not refer to them as teabaggers? And somehow these same vermin, who we wouldn't allow in our yards, are able to make Republicans and conservatives self-censor when we come up with something they don't like.

Personally, I liked the billboard. The Left has compared us to the SS since the Nixon presidency, so turnabout should be fair play. And there are millions of people in this country who believe that billboard had a point - that this nation is being fundamentally and purposefully altered at its foundations by a smooth-talking agitator who's as close to a dictator as this republic has ever seen. (Twelve more "czars" were unconstitutionally appointed in the time it took to write this paragraph!)

Let's contrast this with the other big political news this week. The NAACP national convention drafted a resolution in Kansas City that condemned the Tea Party as racist. Did you catch that? They flat-out stated Tea Party supporters are bigoted. So on one hand, we have a single billboard in a small Iowa town of 30,000 that draws the ire of the entire nation's Left-leaning media for being...well, it wasn't racist...and five hours to the south we have a powerful political organization comprised of one race, gathered for the sole purpose of furthering that single race's agenda, drafting a resolution labeling another political organization as racist.

The billboard comes down...but THAT stands?!? Hear the NAACP president, Benjamin Todd Jealous: "We have no problem with the Tea Party. We have a problem with the Tea Party tolerating racists in their ranks."

Pot, meet Kettle.

But there was no howling from the Left out of KC. No outrage. Only more critical focus on the Mason City billboard, which made the evening news on the networks.

CBS political analyst John Dickerson on the billboard: "But sometimes it's the community's leaders who go too far. The Iowa Tea Party purchased a billboard in downtown Mason City comparing Barack Obama to Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. The group has since covered it up, saying it was counterproductive."

What's "too far", John? Who gets to decide what "too far" is? Are you the one who decided it was "too far"? (I don't recall this level of disdain when Hollywood made a film about the assassination of George Bush - while he was in office. What if one was made about Obama? How would that go over?)

That's my entire point. Conservatives, never, ever set the ground rules. They always let the Left do it...which, of course, rigs the entire game hopelessly against them and leaves them always starting in the down position, like a turtle on its back. What the Tea Party should have said was something like this:

"Fifty-five percent of this country believes that our current president is a socialist, which is the point the billboard is making. Obama isn't exterminating his enemies...but his policies are exterminating millions of American jobs. The billboard stays."

Then let the Left revile. Let them gnash their teeth and tear at their robes. And leave the billboard up. Don't address it publicly again. Don't defend it because there's no need to. No matter how many times the media baits you, don't address it. Let it stand. You have more supporters than you will ever know.

This great nation of ours will never be conquered by an outside military force. Japanese Naval Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said after World War II, "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." (This is the main reason for the never-ending assault on our Second Amendment right to bear arms, but that's a discussion for another day.)

But this country CAN crumble from within - and that's what the Left is working on furiously this very day, this very moment. The North Iowa Tea Party knew this, and compared our sitting president to two other dictators who successfully turned the trick. Their billboard wasn't racist. It wasn't offensive. And it wasn't "too far." It was pretty accurate.

Every time the Left starts squealing en masse like stuck pigs, we're getting close to the truth.

We must start to set, and play, by our own rules rather than theirs...and keep sticking them. It's going to take courage to win this 2nd civil war, and bowing to the Left like Obama does to every foreign leader isn't going to get it done.

--Todd Stevens

Superfriends ... or the Legion of Doom?

2010-07-10T15:29:00.003-05:00

And so it is over. LeBron James is a member of the Miami Heat. Now we can resume the more leisurely important moments of this summer in the Year of Our Lord 2010 - the gulf oil spill...Elena Kagan...a sitting U.S. president suing one of the 50 stars on our flag...even the spy swap. And ESPN can get back to bludgeoning us with the divine-because-it's-not-red-white-and-blue spectacle known as the World Cup.

James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, all NBA mega-star free agents, opted to form their own Justice League this week, declare themselves Superfriends and join forces for one franchise.

But is it their fate to become the opposite? The Legion of Doom?

As a longtime sports columnist who's been around countless mega-athletes, and a longtime corporate trainer with experience in team building, I see it as an almost foregone conclusion.

All three are adamant that they're together to win a championship. I don't doubt their desire; each left $15 million on the table to come together. I just doubt every single other aspect about them and their quest. Cue the scrolling list of potential issues with this that I see springing up:

The bar for their success will be set stratospherically high. The media will expect them to win 70-75 games next season, and win the NBA championship four of the next five years. My own son said at dinner last night, "They'll win the next three titles - easy." But what happens when they don't? They have one - ONE - title ring among the three of them.

When you bring together several massive egos for the purpose of winning a championship, a funny thing happens along the way: those egos refuse to bend, yield, or share for the sake of the team. Ask the 2004 Lakers with Kobe, Shaq, Karl Malone, and Gary Payton - four sure-fire first-ballot Hall of Famers - in their starting lineup. They were run out of the Finals in five short games by a Detroit Pistons team with no mega-stars but plenty of team chemistry. When you're used to having the spotlight, you don't give it up.

Another problem with this mammoth sense of self is that when things start turning south - and they will - the finger-pointing by the Superfriends will begin almost immediately. Remember Terrell Owens blaming Jessica Simpson for a Cowboys late-season home loss? A team divided cannot stand.

LeBron, Wade, and Bosh are their own team now. You saw them Friday night at their "unveiling" for the Miami fans. Where were the other team members? These three ARE the Heat. They'll look for each other on the floor, they'll hang with each other off the court. Whoever the Heat can scrape up with the remaining ashes of their salary cap room for the other nine roster spots will operate as another unit. The Heat Haves, and the Heat Have-Nots. This issue, when it surfaces, will devour them. As good as they are, the Heat can't play three-on-five.

Whoever the coach winds up being (it almost certainly won't be the current no-name coach for long) has ZERO chance of reining them in. Would you answer to someone who makes 50 times less than you do, and has 1/1,000th the power? The inmates will run the asylum. (The only possible saving grace here is that Pat Riley comes down from the front office to coach. He may be the only one who could make them bend to his will.

How will Heat ticket-buyers react to the tremendous price spike that's certain to come in order to pay this trio the $327 million? That's right - each one of them is a $100 million man. And will fans keep buying if this experiment starts to flame out?

Finally, they've become the anti-Christs of the NBA. Every team in the league will be gunning for them every night. The Cavaliers, Knicks, Bulls, Nets, and Clippers may actually bring guns to the game. Or sign Gilbert Arenas.

The rest of the NBA didn't want this. A large part of basketball's fan base didn't want this. But James, Wade, and Bosh held the power cards, and they used them to bully their desires into reality, rest of the league be damned. (Hang on a sec while I wipe this Obamacare/cap-and-trade/illegal immigration flash from my mind...)

It's a sad day for the NBA. Individual has now completely supplanted team. It's a sad day for sports, as we continue to watch the media glorify and promote the self-adulation that was "The Decision." It's a sad day for impressionable youths, who now have a new standard, so to speak, when imitating their role models.

It's the safest bet around that history will remember James, Wade, and Bosh as the Legion of Doom. And I'll be waiting for a team-oriented opponent to unexpectedly broom them out of the playoffs. I shouldn't have to wait long.

--Todd Stevens

Gallup, Steele and McChrsytal prove conservatives more patriotic than liberals

2010-07-05T13:26:00.002-05:00

Gallup's most recent, and perhaps most provocative, polling data reveals something that seems intuitively true: conservatives are more patriotic than liberals. While no one who remembers polling data about the Iraq campaign, or indeed the typical liberal response to the Iraq campaign, should be surprised by the Gallup data it does provide an interesting statistical validation of recent powerful displays of the vast difference between the objectives each ideology pursues in public policy.

The Republican response to General Stan McChrystal's insubordinate remarks was almost universally supportive of the chain of command and the decision to remove and retire General McChrystal, regardless of the Republican agreement with the substance of McChyrstal's criticisms of the Administration. Republicans defended the need for civilian direction of the military and chain of command rather than exploit the chaos in the Obama Administration.

Juxtapose that Republican response to the Democrat's six year embrace of any military personnel that would publicly demean the Bush Iraq policy. Ask yourself how many times you saw leading Democrats cite President Bush's failure to reappoint or promote then Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki as evidence of the Bush Administration's malevolent nature? The Democrats willingness and desire to embrace any military officer that would publicly disagree with Bush Administration Iraq policy extended even to Generals Casey and Sanchez, whose opinions were obviously discredited by their own failure as commanders in the field. Democrats gave no thought to chain of command when it came to a Republican President.

Two weeks after the McChrystal kerfuffle the public has been exposed to Michael Steele's at best malapropism about the history and nature of the Afghan campaign. No Republican leader has risen to support Steele's description of Afghanistan as President Obama's war and a war of choice that the nation did not need to fight. Democrat elected leadership routinely said far, far worse of the Iraq campaign than the worst interpretation that the English language supports for Steele's commentary. The best example of the insane attacks on President Bush came from Steele's then counterpart, DNC Chair Howard Dean, who suggested that the 9.11 attacks were an inside job! One should never forget the declarations of defeat in Iraq that were the regular stock in trade of Dingy Harry Reid, Damascus Nancy Pelosi, Hillary "willing suspension of disbelief" Clinton and, of course, then Senator Barack Obama.

Twenty percent of Democrats consistently admitted a desire for American defeat in Iraq so that it would discredit President Bush. Democrat elected leadership did everything in their power to subvert Bush Iraq and Afghanistan policy. Republicans have overwhelmingly supported the Obama Afghan surge and the President's war fighting powers in the War on Terror (even if the President cannot bring himself to admit the United States is at war with Islamic extremism).

Based on the facts, anecdotal and statistical, Labor/socialist/Democrats will sacrifice anything, including the reader's personal safety, in pursuit of domestic political power.

Recovery Summer: Never underestimate parallel reality

2010-07-03T14:49:00.001-05:00

The economic news continues to chronicle the funerary march toward the economic Elysian Fields. Where once the American economy was the literal engine of global growth the Obama leadership now concedes that under its leadership the United States no longer drives the global economy.

The economic statistics speak for themselves; during the first month of the season President Obama has labeled "recovery summer" the United States shed another 125,000 jobs, the dramatic decline in consumer confidence has accelerated, housing starts continue to plummet, orders for durable goods are in free fall and the stock market lost a thousand points last quarter. Even the lone bright spot, a decline in unemployment from 9.7% to 9.5% is a false positive resulting from a staggering 652,000 Americans' abandoning both the hope for employment and the national labor force.

The Labor/socialist/Democrats have labeled the summer of 2010 as "Recovery Summer". Administration officials and L/S/D talking heads are on the speaking and talk show circuit describing the "unprecedented turnaround" in "the worst economy since the Great Depression". The inconvenient truths, to borrow a phrase, are as inconsistent with the L/S/D claims of economic revival as are the words "chakra" and Al Gore". Barack Obama has presided over more than three million lost jobs, jobs that his Vice President says are not going to return.

Conservatives and Republicans cannot assume that the reality of American economic decline assure of us victory in November 2010. The dominant L/S/D media has demonstrated the ability to fool all of the people nearly all of the time. Although the years 2002-2007 were boom years featuring full employment and record stock and equity performances, home ownership and durable good purchases no fewer than one third of the American people consistently believed the United States was in a recession during those same six years. The liberal campaign of 2006 was based on a need for economic change. The unemployment rate was then 4/4% and the Dow was over 12,000.

Our challenge is to bring home the reality of Democrat economic performance to the undecided/independent voter. To reach those voters we need to identify the mediums that are most susceptible to L/S/D propaganda (like the Daily Show and MTV audiences). If we fail, why should we believe that the L/S/D media and academic syndicates will be any less effective in agitprop than they were in 2006 and 2008?

Fear and Loathing in these Christian United States

2010-07-03T11:28:00.001-05:00

My daughter will be a junior this fall at the University of Iowa. I've watched her grow immeasurably over the last two years in terms of maturity, critical thinking skills, time and money management, and goals. All in all, her Iowa City experience been a whirlwind of challenges met, objectives attained, and knowledge expanded. She's a Hawkeye football season ticket holder, works at Nate Kaeding's bar and grill, and even shares her apartment with her new dog, Ruka. She's meshed well in the trendy, cosmopolitan, liberal hotbed of our state. And yet for all this, she remains as flummoxed by liberals as she was the day she moved into the dorms her freshman year.

"They're NEVER happy, Dad. They're always angry."

I told her recently (borrowing a line from someone who posted this on a newspaper web site), "Honey, liberalism is the Libertine unleashing of the Self upon the world. It is a religion."

She didn't get it. Perhaps you don't either.

If you know a liberal, you know they're generally unhappy people. Fearful of global warming. Angry at the right wing. Despondent over the gulf oil spill. Militant in their drive to smash down opposition to their goals. Hateful of creationists, traditional marriage, and pro-lifers. She doesn't understand the tidal wave of loathing the left has for everything that doesn't ooze good intentions, freedom from responsibility, or James Taylor.

I simply tell her, "Honey, it's God."

The Left has it all. They have the presidency - and the biggest bully ever to occupy that office. Yet they seethe. They have both houses of Congress, and have marched in lockstep against 234 years of political precedent. Yet they howl. They have the media - which has become nothing more than a cardboard cutout of Joseph Goebbels in terms of propaganda versus objectivity. Yet they rail against the handful of outlets that stand in opposition to their mammoth juggernaut. They have the educational system - which allows them complete and unfettered access to our children from kindergarten through college. Yet they gnash their teeth.

They have it all. And liberals are miserable. It's part of their DNA. But why, Daddy?

"Honey, it's God."

Take any social issue, any political issue, any world event, and liberals want to be in charge of it. But not just in charge - they want to be the unchallenged masters of our existence. This gets back to the point I made to my daughter: Liberalism is a religion. It is the Libertine unleashing of the Self (rather than God) upon the world. In other words, they want to be God. And since that job is taken (which enrages them), and the real Heaven has already been created and is out of their jurisdiction, they crave to create their own version of heaven right here, right now...or as close to it as they can get. This is their heaven. And when that version of heaven is slow to come to fruition, or others dare to disrupt their plans....well, they get angry. To wit:

Man-made global warming: We MUST do something - which suggests God is either asleep at the switch or doesn't exist.

Creationism/Christianity: This assumes there is a power greater than ourselves...which means someone else would be in control. (Never mind the irony of asking people to take on faith one thing that hasn't been proven (man-made global warming); and to steadfastly refuse to believe in another (God)...)

Health Care: They want the power to take care of us from cradle to grave. THEY want to be seen as God in our lives.

9/11: They couldn't wait to attack the wave of faith-based patriotism that welled up after the attacks. When crisis arrives, people turn to God. That wouldn't stand, so the Left chided and ridiculed us for it.

Abortion: If God exists, it's murder because He creates all life. So they've worked tirelessly to frame it as a medical or personal issue, not a faith-based one. Eliminate God, and this is just a medical procedure.

Same-sex relationships: If God exists, they're in trouble. So let's live and govern as if He does not.

God in schools: If God is allowed in public schools, the liberal belief system is challenged at its core. This has much more to do with competition for young minds than it does separation of church and state.

Gulf oil spill: The Left says this is horrific, the major modern disaster of our time...because there is no God to help us. (Are we really that gullible to believe that oil isn't leaking out at the same rate anywhere else on the planet? Or that God didn't design nature to take care of itself over time? Anyone seen Prince William Sound lately?)

Animal rights: If animals have the same rights as we do, then we're not in dominion over them, as the Bible clearly states. And if the Bible is wrong...

Starting to see the thread? Every single aspect of our ongoing cultural war has one common goal: eradicating God in general, and Jesus Christ in particular, from our consciousness. And it's not working. Their heaven on earth isn't coming together as they'd envisioned it.

They're human. They are not Gods.

Breaking News: Todd Stevens has joined TRS!!

2010-07-03T11:22:00.003-05:00

We here at TRS are downright pleased to announce that Todd Stevens, formerly known as the leading sports columnist at a number of Iowa newspapers, among them the Mason City Globe Gazette and the Ames Tribune.

Todd Stevens holds both Bachelors and Masters degrees from Iowa State University, but is a die-hard Oklahoma Sooners fan (for which we have forgiven him). Todd spent more than 12 years as a sports columnist and talk show host at a variety of publications and radio stations during his tenure in sports media, and was also a frequent guest on WHO-TV's Soundoff and WHO radio's Soundoff. Todd's unapologetic conservative sporting stance during his writing days brought him legions of enemies....but even more fans.

In his new career, Todd works as a human resources trainer in the insurance and financial services industry. Todd has also been an adjunct faculty member at William Penn University, and previous experience in public relations and corporate communications. Todd is also a published author and public speaker.

We are thrilled to have his input here at TRS. Welcome aboard.

Gallup: Conservatives ounumber liberals two to one: advantage growing!

2010-06-27T11:27:00.003-05:00

We here at TRS have long relied on Gallup polling data as a fairly and consistently reliable indicator of public sentiment (slightly different than voter sentiment where Rasmussen has proven quite reliable). Gallup has continued to report that self-identified conservatives continue to outnumber liberals by more than two to one, 42%-20% and that the conservative advantage has grown by 2% in 2010.

Moreover, self identified "moderates" (voters who believe little or nothing and can be persuaded either way) have shrunk to an eighteen year low of 35%.

Conservatives still have the chance to change the culture; but it will not change by itself. Political opportunism can pander to the moderates lack of ideological conviction and gain a temporary electoral advantage. More than a temporary change of mood in about half of the 35% of "moderates" is necessary to reverse the direction of American culture, however. America needs a generation of a permanent governing small government constitutional conservatism-from the school house to the White House.

If the cultural direction is to be changed and the trajectory of our cultural evolution is to be reversed, "moderates" must become convicted in the belief that small government constitutional conservatism both identifies the correct problems in the voter's daily life and provides the solutions to the problems that have been correctly identified.

The question is will we even try?

Jan Brewer: Is she the GOP Joan of Arc?

2010-06-26T16:46:00.011-05:00

Like an old and leathered Joan of Arc at the Valois court of Dauphan Charles, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has once again shown conservatives and Republicans a glimpse of the strategy we must follow if the present erratically paced but none the less linear descent into a shriveling, socialist nanny state is to be reversed.

Governor Brewer's following video is a brilliant, fact based argument that rebuts the Labor/Socialist/Democrat attempts to silence the reasonable demand for border security.

Please pass around Governor Brewer's video. If constitutional conservatives fail to educate the public you certainly know the liberal academic/entertainment/educational establishment will. That liberal meme will require a belief that the American border has less meaning that Iowa's border with Minnesota, and only the Ku Klux Klan can disagree.

So, unless you do not think the trajectory of American culture and history demands change, please help inform the non-political people in your life about the real facts of modern living.

Hopefully Governor Brewer's video will prove as stimulative to Republican courage (is Capitol Hill listening) and ingenuity (e.g. air educational ads during sporting events and reality shows) as teenaged Joan of Arc provided to Valois valor.

Apathetic-USA.com Intro Movie

2010-06-24T13:31:00.001-05:00

I just discovered a fantastic new website and group.

Apathetic-USA.com Intro Movie

Click it, well worth the watching. The website is also great reading.

You can't defeat your adversaries if you don't know who they are and what they are doing.

Kim Reynolds: Her Record Speaks For Itself

2010-06-24T11:37:00.003-05:00

The question the grassroots will be wondering is if Kim Reynolds, the Lieutenant Governor pick by Governor Brandstad, is or isn’t a true conservative? Her record stands before her.

Well let’s see….she sponsored a bill determining when life begins that acknowledged the rights, privileges, and protection of the unborn. Pass with flying colors—she IS pro-life.

She sponsored a bill to put in internet filters in public libraries to protect children. Pass

She sponsored a bill requiring drug testing for people applying for or receiving state assistance. The “Ur-in or Ur-out” system so that we don’t have to fund the drug addicted welfare crowd. Pass

She sponsored a bill that would give Iowan’s the right to choose their health care, which is especially valuable as we fall under the dictatorship of the Federal Obamacare. Pass

She sponsored a bill that would require the placement of a right-to-work notice to be placed on state property and in state publicans. Pass

She sponsored a bill to create a website for the public so the public access to the state budget with details of expenditures and the tax rates for all districts of the state--real government transparency. Pass

She sponsored a bill to give veterans’, honorably discharged, the right to have a lifetime fishing and hunting licenses at a nominal fee--another great idea. Pass

She sponsored the economic development bill that would provide tax credits for new job creation while eliminating the government, mismanaged, “Grow Iowa Values Fund.” Less government at it’s finest. Pass

Sponsored a Joint Resolution proposing an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that would fix the problem with how judges to the Iowa Supreme Court are rigged by allowing the Governor to nix the choices sent to him if they are not good choices and force the process to start over with better nominees. We really need this problem fixed as we have seen with the garbage handed down to us against marriage. Pass

She sponsored a bill to require voters to show ID before they vote. Genius. Couldn’t agree more. Pass

So essentially, Senator Kim Reynolds went into office and took the bull by the horns and got busy. Her record is clear with…

Protect human life, protect kids, protect the tax payer from welfare abuse, protect our 2nd Amendment rights, protect our health care rights, protect the worker, establish government transparency, thank our veterans, reduce government from a useless program that cost the taxpayer millions, fix the problem with the nomination of judges to the Iowa Supreme Court and protect our votes at the ballot box from groups like ACORN.

Is Kim Reynolds a true pro-life, pro-family, conservative Republican (with a spine)?….Is the Pope Catholic (and I'm a Catholic)? Yes, she is a true conservative. Not only that, but she is a very kind woman and I personally like her. I think she is a very good choice for lieutenant governor and I believe she will do us proud.

Republican State Convention: The Life Platform

2010-06-20T11:01:00.004-05:00

Every cycle Republican platform debates across the country take on the issue of the right to life agenda, and in particular abortion.

Although virtually every public poll shows the right to life cause is increasingly majoritarian in the population as a whole, a sizeable majority of the L/S/D coalition remains committed to abortion as a moral virtue and not merely a right. Advocating the majority position and opposing the minority, a tactic that implicitly demonstrates the extremism of our adversaries' minority position, seems prudent, at least from an electoral success perspective.

To the extent the Iowa Republican Party maintains its present, majoritarian, position on right to life then we should adopt those legislative solutions that are aimed at ending abortion in Iowa.

I would suggest the following, market oriented platform items:

Prohibit issuing malpractice insurance to health care professionals that provide elective abortions.
Prohibit the payment of any state funds of any kind or for any purpose to any medical institution that enables the provision of elective abortions.

Enforcement would be simple, no new state employees would be required. No liberal woman's real or perceived rights under Roe v. Wade would be violated. No constitutional fight would be necessary.

In the end, abortion would simply cease to exist in the jurisdiction of Iowa law. Moreover the aforesaid two measures, much like last week's immigration proposal, provide a clearly measured metric of performance by the candidates that we support once elected.

Delegates, give it some thought.

RNC Report: Atlas says don't shrug, drink coffee.

2010-06-19T13:55:00.001-05:00

The Obama administration is encountering “their first” - can’t blame Bush, or we inherited economy - crisis and it is truly comical to watch. I find myself glued to the Twitter stream for his next move. The President’s actions remind me of all the stuff I used to do in my activist days. Essentially (embarrassed to admit it), I know how these type of men think.

When Obama said that he can’t let a crisis go to waste, I get that; its part of the play book to raise money and get people to take action for your agenda. At first I was shocked when the President turned down help from other countries to clean up the spill but then it struck me - he doesn’t want it cleaned up. You have to give him credit for being single minded and on message for socialism.

Here is what I imagine he said at the moment he was told about the BP oil spill…”Humm, I see great opportunity here ladies and gentlemen...” Other world leaders must be utterly amazed, and not in a good way.

Clearly our situation with President Obama is serious. His election is a symptom of a greater problem. The Republic doesn’t know who it is or understand its responsibility to freedom. Joe Public is not connecting the dots between the phrase limited government and their personal freedom. Nor do they know the purpose and boundaries of the US Constitution because they have been under educated by a liberal education establishment.

This is why conservatives on the Republican National Committee are putting together Constitution Coffees, Liberty Teas and Bill of Rights BBQs around the country. This is a simply another way to reach people and discuss the Constitution and what it means. We want to do this at a grassroots level to reach people who are not plugged into politics. This program is a fun and welcoming way to build relationships with those of our neighbors who know something is seriously wrong with government but don’t know what to do about it. They are tired of corrupt government and well they should be.

We will distribute a White Paper on the Constitution Coffees and Liberty Teas that explains the essence and purpose of the Constitution. Let face it, limited government will never happen until the people who vote understand its value in their lives. Look at it this way….we have a crisis and we need to fix it. Our agenda is FREEDOM!

The schedule for our first Constitution Coffee’s and Liberty Tea in Iowa:

June 28th, 10AM--11AM CAFÉ DIEM 2005 S. Ankeny Boulevard in Ankeny.
July 1st, 3 PM--4 PM FRIEDRICHS 22nd Street in West Des Moines.
July 8th, 10AM—11AM FRIEDRICHS 86th Street in Johnston.
July 22nd 9AM--10AM CARIBOU COFFEE 3220 Ingersoll Avenue in Des Moines.

Liberty Tea:

July 10th 11AM—1PM 11355 NE 142nd Avenue in Maxwell at the home of Dan and Linda Sprague.

If you are not in the Des Moines area but would like to have a Constitution Coffee, let me know. I can either schedule one near you or help you put one together for your friends.

This is one step for freedom that everyone can take (or drink). See you there.

Breaking News: Iowa National Committeewoman Kim Lehman joins TRS.

2010-06-18T11:11:00.007-05:00

Kim Lehman, RNC

We are delighted to announce that Iowa Republican National Committee Woman Kim Lehman has joined us as a regular contributor here at TRS.

Kim serves on the national Resolutions Committee of the RNC and is a member of the Republican National Conservative Caucus within the RNC.

In her day job, Kim works for the John Paul II Stem Cell Research Institute as the Marketing Director and fund raiser. Kim is the former President of the Iowa Right to Life Committee and State Director for Concerned Women for America. Kim lobbied at the Iowa State house for 15 years to advance pro-life and pro-family legislation while she worked with the grassroots as a speaker and advocate for the sanctity of human life. Kim has been a regular member of Republican platform committees for more than a decade.

Kim is currently a member of the Board of Iowan’s for Tax Relief and serves on the advisory board for Informed Choices of Iowa. Kim and her husband Randal live in Johnston, Iowa, and have 6 grown children and 3 grandchildren.

Stay tuned for Kim's regular contributions.

Republican State Convention: The Immigration Platform

2010-06-17T19:40:00.001-05:00

Next weekend the Republican Party of Iowa will come together in general convention in Des Moines. The state platform committee has been busy for the last several weeks working on a party platform. Those guys bust their tails. Those of us who have run large conventions always come to appreciate the genuine effort the platform people contribute every two years.

In the past my party responsibilities prohibited my serious and active participation in the platform debate. This year, by virtue of Al Gore's greatest invention (although the global warming hoax has been big for Al and Tipper and Lori) old Uncle Teddy can virtually participate from the comfort of a nice, soft reclining chair.

On almost every issue perhaps clarity and brevity would give us a document by which to define ourselves and attract new supporters. In the era of the thirty second spot and Mayfly life cycle attention spans we need more of a sound bite than a manifesto.

Wouldn't the following be a pretty simple clear statement of immigration policy for Iowa Republicans?

Adopt Arizona 1070.
Enforce English as the official language of the state.
Progressively impose employer fines, suspension of business activity and asset forfeiture for employing illegal aliens based on employer assets.
Adopt Arizona 2281 (anti-ethnic division legislation).
Fund "New American" programs for English education and cultural assimilation through the funds collected from aforesaid progressively imposed employer fines, suspension of business activity and asset recovery.

This would take no more than thirty seconds to tell the voter and can be easily and readily explained in less than three minutes (if one avoids the use of cliches and tag lines). A simple and clear statement also provides a readily measured metric by which to judge our nominees when they become our public officials.

Obama on Oil: Word salad.

2010-06-16T15:27:00.000-05:00

Much has already been said, some surprisingly by the President's usually sycophantic liberal media complex, about the general lack of coherence in President Obama's Gulf disaster speech. While the general opinion concluded that the One for whom we've all been waiting had less punch than my beloved Boston Celtics last night there was one particularly bright spot; the President provided the quintessential example of what we constitutional conservatives mean by "word salad" when describing liberal speak.

The President actually used these words:

"Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny -- our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there. We know we'll get there."

Now that foregoing paragraph, which by the consensus of opinion was the high water mark of President Obama's first Oval Office address, means absolutely nothing; it is simply gibberish, and that is the best thing about it.

Much worse than its lack of meaning is the ability to be construed as, quite literally, anything. Heretofore, among the most dangerous aspects of the President's ambiguous academic language is the ability of the audience to hear whatever it is already predisposed to hear.

Leaders say what they mean and mean what they say. Maybe aloof studied ambiguity in the face of a real crises explain today's new low water mark of public approval for the One.

Bill and Al do Willie and Julio

2010-06-15T20:34:00.000-05:00

C'mon, everybody sing along!

Lyrics To All The Girls I've Loved Before Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson Words To To All The Girls I've Loved Before Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson Listen To Song Lyrics Downloads:

"To all the girls I've loved before

Who travelled in and out my door

I'm glad they came along

I dedicate this song

To all the girls I've loved before

To all the girls I once caressed

And may I say I've held the best

For helping me to grow

I owe a lot I know

To all the girls I've loved before

The winds of change are always blowing

And every time I try to stay

The winds of change continue blowing

And they just carry me away

To all the girls who shared my life

Who now are someone else's wives

I'm glad they came along

I dedicate this song

To all the girls I've loved before

To all the girls who cared for me

Who filled my nights with ecstasy

They live within my heart

I'll always be a part

Of all the girls I've loved before

The winds of change are always blowing

And every time I try to stay

The winds of change continue blowing

And they just carry me away

To all the girls we've loved before

Who travelled in and out our doors

We're glad they came along

We dedicate this song

To all the girls we've loved before

Who travelled in and out our doors

We're glad they came along

We dedicate this song

To all the girls we've loved before"

Congressman King responds to liberal critics: Real Sporer Exclusive!

2010-06-14T23:22:00.000-05:00

I just get off the phone with Congressman Steve King. The Congressman provided us with his response to the liberal attack on him following his appearance on the Gordon Liddy show earlier today.

After noting that the liberal hit group "Media Matters" ignited the faux controversy by releasing an editted version of his statements, and edit that was obviously employed to change the context, the Congressman in his typical fashion, showed political courage in the face of feigned liberal outrage and the personal attacks that followed his claim that the Obama Administration has displayed a default position of racial bias.

Congressman King delivered a simple but crushing response to the liberal critics. "The fact that liberals have risen to attack me and call me names without rebutting my assertions concedes my point" said the Congressman, who then concluded: "When they start calling you names you know they've lost the argument".

Steve King provides Republican courage, a refreshing oasis in a desert of fear.

Congressman King vs. Race Baiting Coates (or the anvil that crushed the ant).

2010-06-14T20:43:00.002-05:00

Congressman Steve King

Iowa's Fifth District Congressman Steve King opined earlier this morning (on G. Gordon Liddy's radio program) that

"When you look at this administration, I'm offended by Eric Holder and the President also, their posture. It looks like Eric Holder said that white people in America are cowards when it comes to race. And I don't know what the basis of that is but I'm not a coward when it comes to that and I'm happy to talk about these things and I think we should. But the President has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race — on the side that favors the black person."

One could not simply dismiss Congressman King's statements after hearing the multiple specific factual examples of what appear to be race based favoritism of black people or groups by the Obama Administration. (Don't start the African-American nonsense with me unless you're a recent immigrant from Africa; we're all Americans and we here at TRS do not recognize ethnic distinctions in that political status based on our reading of the 14th Amendment.) The simple facts are as they are and Congressman King's statement cites those facts.

As expected, however, the liberal left has become more inflamed than their last outburst at Congressman King's suggestion that Islamofacist regimes would cheer an Obama victory (in that case the Congressman merely repeated the statements of Islamofacist leaders themselves). Perhaps the most logically deficient attack came promptly from an Atlantic Monthly editor named Ta-nahesi Coates.

Needless to say, Coates apparently concedes the facts of the several examples of racial bias Congressman King cited. Rather than engage in argument,Coates' went immediately to the post modern PC thought cop's big bomb-the outright accusation of racism. Coates puts an interesting twist on the old attack; although King's comment contains no racial invective the mere opinion that a black President's Administration shows bias toward black citizens and groups is itself inherently racist.

Coates relies on a rather strange historical analog for his conclusion. Coates cites an 1864 statement that he attributes to General William T. Sherman through which Sherman voiced objections to recruiting black soldiers because "when fools and idiots try and make niggers better than ourselves, I [Sherman] have an opinion". The only logical relationship between Congressman King's statements and those of a general, who was significantly responsible for changing Coates' status from property to person, now dead for some 119 years appears to their common partisan registration. Nothing in Congressman King's statements require racial animus for their accuracy, unless the mere act of criticizing the racial bias of black person is ipso facto racist, for his the Congressman's opinion about the Big O's administration to be correct.

What Coates and Holder mean by a discussion of race is, in reality, a lecture on white racism. Had their motive been different Coates would have engaged Congressman King on the facts and not rushed to the invective and ad hominem. There's a reason these guys don't debate conservatives, there really is.

As for Congressman King, he does not need me to tell him to keep calling the shots as he sees them.

Congressman King: Audio Profile in Courage

2010-06-14T19:31:00.000-05:00

Congressman Steve King, engaging in the most dangerous of all political speech, speaking truth to power in a politically correct world.

Can anyone seriously doubt the truth of the Congressman's statement about the racial bias of the Obama Administration.

Atlas Shrugs Censored By Pay Pal: Geller got one thing wrong.

2010-06-13T11:09:00.002-05:00

Some of you may already be familiar with the outstanding Atlas Shrugged blog. Atlas Shrugs' authored by Pamela Geller, has been the most recent target of the oldest device in the Labor/socialist/Democrat tool room: censorship.

Geller's commentary is a well spoken discussion of the news of the day from a conservative perspective. Like most conservatives, Geller focuses on facts, as in real occurrences and events and not the "change our history" facts of the Michelle Obama dictionary. Those facts are frequently unpleasant, particularly as Geller describes the Islamic threat to the basic Western principles of liberte', egalite', fraternite' and the more recent baby boom codicil of personal hedonism.

Altough apparently unable to describe any "hate speech" with factual specificity PayPal determined that Geller's commentary violates PayPal's acceptable use restrictions. PayPal then discontinued its services to Atlas Shrugs.

Geller's response is a brilliant example of conservative "fight back" that we so often advocate on these pages but she got one thing wrong: truth is not the liberal's latest victim, truth is the first victim of liberal political power.

Conservatives don't support politically correct speech codes on campus.
Conservatives don't support federal regulation of collective political speech by corporations and unions.
Conservatives don't phyically attack liberal speakers, but liberals routinely attack conservatives.
Conservatives don't support regulation of political speech on television and radio by reviving the Orwellian "fairness doctrine.
Conservatives don't support regulation of political speech on the internet through application the equally Orwellian "net neutrality".
Conservatives don't support restrictions on employment based on political or religous conscience.

Each item on the foregoing list is a current examples of the broad based L/S/D attack on freedom of speech, thought and conscience. Almost as I write these words the Obama Administration's FTC is preparing a government takeover of the newspaper industry through more fiscal "bailouts".

The modern conservative should never forget what "change our history" means in historical terms. What, after all, are the ultimate agiprops of history? The national socialist states of Germany and Italy, the communist socialist states like the old Soviet Union and its modern bastard offspring in China, Cuba and Venezuala certainly come first to mind. Propoganda has always been an essential element of the socialist state.

For propoganda to work, truth must be silenced. As for Pamela Geller, keep up the fight sister.

Pumped On Their Own Petard

2010-06-11T17:03:00.001-05:00

The new normal for Mississippi catfish.

History rarely provides an event that repudiates both an ideology and the ideologues that evangelize it. The BP gulf oil leak is precisely that rarest of events.

Our readers will undoubtedly recall the Labor/socialist/Democrat response to Hurricane Katrina. George W. Bush was blamed, quite literally, for the hurricane itself (based on his opposition to the Kyoto global warming treaty) and every deficient aspect of every government (municipal, county, state and federal) response thereto. This memory is hardly subjective-type the words "Bush" and "Katrina" into a Bing or Yahoo search engine and read the first ten websites.

While W was blamed with the most personal and vicious of attacks for every deficient aspect of any government's response to Katrina by the L/S/Ds the same L/S/Ds are utterly silent in the face of the federal government's much slower and even less efficacious response to the BP gulf oil blowout. The feds had more time to prepare a response to the current disaster and a far more responsible and effective Louisiana this time around than was ever provided by the onrush of Katrina. The individual federal officials, like Secretaries Salazar and Napolitano, have underperformed the federal bureaucrats who certainly had a less than outstanding response to Katrina.

Hardly a word of criticism of the One and the Singlets who work for him has been heard amongst the denizens of liberal thought. How often does history provide such a stark indictment of the intellectual honesty and political morality of almost an entire political class? Not often I daresay.

More significantly, does not the BP oil leak catastrophe demonstrate the very real limitations of federal competence? Just as the federal bureaucrats who implement disaster plans (not the political leadership that appoints them) failed in their response to Katrina they have failed yet again in the response to the BP oil leak. Even with the benefit of after action analysis of the bureaucratic clots that clog the federal response to anything, even with the benefit of the brilliance of President Obama, the federal government again demonstrated itself unable to tackle a big tactical crisis.

The entire corpus of L/S/D ideology is premised on the superiority, if not infallibility, of the federal ability deliver goods and services to the American people. Ultimately, the BP oil spill demonstrates the inherent weakness of the federal government to solve problems, including those problems that only the federal government is realistically equipped to solve. Even with the most committed liberal progressives in complete control of government it failed and is demonstrating more failure on a daily, really hourly, basis. What could provide better empirical evidence of the failure of the big government model even where big government is necessary?

If the federal government cannot manage the production of oil, regulated for over a century, and the deliver of disaster prevention and relief, federally controlled since the great San Francisco earthquake in 1906, why would any rational thinker believe the feds could efficiently deliver health care or energy rationing?

Leonard Boswell: Its time to defend your real record

2010-06-08T23:23:00.004-05:00

Now just who is calling the shots here?

The hour is upon incumbent Leonard Boswell in which he must defend his real voting record and what it has done to Iowans.

Why has Congressman Boswell failed Iowans by consistently supporting the ultra-left agenda of TARP, union bail outs, corporate takeovers, false job numbers and imposing the mandate of Obamacare on the American people, and Iowa's small businesses?

Since Leonard Boswell joined the majority and took stewardship of the American economy the unemployment rate has increased from 4.5% to 9.7%. While the budget deficit and national debt have sky rocketed to levels unknown to post-World War II history since the Congressman became a member of the majority the Dow has fallen by more than 20% and real personal income has dropped faster than Bill Clinton's eyes on a plunging neckline. Now, the Labor/Socialist/Democrat leadership that Congressman Boswell supports is poised to impose a massive tax increase on America's small businesses and families while using a radical environmental plan to increase the cost of energy-that means the price at the pump.

Those are the facts and they are beyond factual refutation. This election is going to be about those facts and not Congressman Boswell's service in Vietnam or grandfatherly personality. We have to focus on the facts because we can no longer afford the substitution of geniality over substance-it is quite literally killing us.

Congrats Governor Branstad

2010-06-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

It looks like Governor Terry Branstad is again the Republican nominee.

Congrats Governor.

Primary Night 2010: Branstad Polk Lead Finishes at 133 and .......

2010-06-08T22:24:00.000-05:00

Matt Schultz wins the Capital County by 4439 over Chris Sanger while George Eichhorn finishes a more distant third. Dave Jamison rolls with a 6960 margin.

Those kind of deficits in a primary are really hard to overcome in the down ballot races so I think we have our nominees. Congrats fellows, especially Dave. Good job Buddy.

Governor Branstad is strong in the eastern part of the state but trails slightly in the Third District. Fourth and Fifth District unknown as of yet.

Primary Night 2010: Branstad Polk Lead Shrinks to .......

2010-06-08T22:00:00.000-05:00

166 votes at 9:59 p.m. Wow???

Polk Update: TEB and RVP on a razor!

2010-06-08T21:35:00.000-05:00

With 175 precincts in TEB leads RVP in Polk County by only 170 votes. That is not good for TEB.

This could go late.

Rod Roberts will be the greatest villain in Iowa conservative history if TEB wins a squeaker.

Zaun Landslide

2010-06-08T21:31:00.000-05:00

With 175 Polk County precints in:

Brad Zaun has a 7292 vote lead.

Its over. Zaun wins.

Primary Night 2010: The Early Returns

2010-06-08T20:17:00.006-05:00

Rumor Central:

8:45 Update--Multiple sources report heavy turnout in Ankeny and NE suburbs.

Early rumors show strange results. Turnout is high in Polk County; conventional wisdom says that favors RVP and Zaun/Funk but TEB people remain confident of a big 55-60 percent mandate.

3rd District tighter than a dope fiend's fix my friends.

Possible shocking big win for Dr. Miller-Meeks.

Primary Night 2010: The Stakes

2010-06-08T18:02:00.006-05:00

The news of the day has thoroughly explored virtually every statistical possibility for tonight's primary results, both here and nationally. However, very few column inches or pixels have discussed the stakes on the table for tonight's primary results.

History rarely provides the voters with a clear electoral choice, even more rarely in an intramural election. This year, 2010, is a year where even primary voters have the opportunity to choose between the party of the last thirty years or the party of the next thirty years.

A victory by the establishment "moderates" across the country means the majority of Republicans lack the will to turn back the imminent tide of socialism and paternalism. The dichotomy is simple to illustrate: the Republican establishment candidates are, on virtually every issue, to the right of the Democrat candidates but nonetheless willing to embrace government based solutions to most problems and greater government management of an increasingly larger share of the citizen's daily life. Put another way, establishment Republicans define their ideology as simply not Democrats.

Such a world view is simply unprepared to reverse the growth of government and the share of our wealth and our individuality it consumes. A moderate in politics is typically moderate in all things. Such personalities either cannot or will not confront the liberal progressive ideology. A "moderate" or "center right" politician may lower the rate of growth, and undoubtedly will better manage government than a "liberal/progressive" but by compromising the premise that government can or should address more problems inherently surrenders the premise that government can and should address a given problem to the liberal/progressive. We, the taxpayer and the citizen, then get more government than we want when Republicans control government and the promise, that with any liberal/progressive electoral success, much more government than we want. History abundantly evidences the inescapable truth of that conclusion.

On the other hand, our party may embrace the only meaningful future we have-a return to small government conservatism as the Republican raison d'etre. Small government conservatism defines the role of government in absolute and objective terms and not as an exercise in relativism. Small government conservatism views American culture as arising from uniquely the American experience in which personal liberty outweigh efficiency and management.

So we Republicans may carry the elections in November. The stakes today are to define what kind of Republicans carry those elections. So come November 2010, think back on today and ask yourselves this simple question: is the temperature in Hell beneficially affected by the speed of the traveler's journey?

Matt Schultz: A down ballot ad (and more) worth watching

2010-06-06T19:11:00.008-05:00

THE CANDIDATE

The down ballot races are usually not very interesting to most voters. After all, most people, and quite reasonably so, have only the vaguest of thoughts as to how their lives are affected by their votes in the Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor and Attorney General races. The down ballot state wides even more rarely generate much advertising on television. Not surprisingly, the advertisements that do run are typically bio/likability pieces designed for little more than name identification.

Matt Schultz is a young Republican seeking our party's nomination for Secretary of State. Matt is running issue ads in a primary. Although the video link is not yet available (technical problems only) even the audio is impressive and quite well worth the thirty seconds it will take you to listen.

Matt's TV spot raises a very important issue-voter fraud. The only reason to oppose photo ID for voting is to perpetuate fraud. No other good faith explanation is possible. Although we are lucky to have the rarest of animals, an honest and competent Democrat, serving as Iowa's SoS, Mike Mauro's Democrat colleagues are your more garden variety and ethically challenged L/S/Ds.

Matt is actually running on an important issue and making an argument for his position, all in a thirty second spot ad. Matt's brief spot educates the public about more than the look of the candidate's face and likability of his family. That is how we persuade the public to agree with our agenda and thereby gain a mandate for the agenda and not just the person.

A Republican running on a real issue; now maybe that's a transformative disease that will become contagious. Either way, this young Matt Schultz is a guy to watch, and long after he wins next Tuesday.

Peter Beinart raises the question: are liberals delusional or demented?

2010-06-04T22:40:00.005-05:00

Well known liberal writer Peter Beinart today expressed, quite inadvertently to be sure, the true lengths of sophistry and self delusion to which liberals are, quite enthusiastically to be sure, willing to travel in their pursuit of Western collapse.

We all know the story of the Israeli commando raid on the Islamic Gaza blockade busters. Israelis stop Islamic ship attempting to avoid submission to the board and search requirements for entry into a Gaza port. Islamic radicals on ship start trouble. Israelis do what Israelis do and bring trouble to a shift and bloody conclusion. World screeches about Israeli brutality while ignoring both the long term implications of Hamas success in breaking Israeli blockade (or perhaps well aware of the long term result, Europe is after all the home of the Dreyfus Affair, the pogrom and the Holocaust) and the immediate short term affect of rearming a progressively enfeebled Hamas.

Beinart actually said that it was cruel and unfair to punish the Palestinian people with the blockade "just" because they voted Hamas into power. Left unstated was the support the Palestinian terror regime receives from what appears to be a majority of the Palestinian people who occupy the sewer of the Mediterranean. Hamas has oft repeated the objective of destroying Israel and annihilating its occupants. Presumably that rather unpleasant objective is shared by the Palestinian people because they empower the terrorists.

The faces of friendship?

Unlike Europe, even the Clinton Administration, in the final analysis could distinguish between our steadfast ally, the Israeli people, and the occupants of the hate filled terror proto state in Gaza. For those who have forgotten, the Israelis rushed to mourn our dead on 9.11 while the residents of Gaza danced in the streets screaming "Death to America".

Hamas attacks Israel with every means at its disposal. The preferred method of attack employed by the Hamas terror state is the acquisition of rockets from Israel, Syria and other terror states followed by the random delivery of the rockets into Israeli population centers. While the moron Left, Cindy Sheehan and her cast of pink clad ignorami, cannot be expected to understand the utter lunacy of the Beinart statement, Beinart is himself at least an intelligent and serious liberal.

Hamas public service ad

The Palestinian people are punished by the blockade because they support terror attacks on Israel. Hamas and its supporters seek to settle their dispute with Israel on the battlefield. The liberal progressive ignorance of history is never more luminescent than when discussing military matters. Power and will prevail on the battlefield. Israel has the power to destroy Hamas so Hamas must rely on international pressure to break Israel's will. Israel must break Hamas' will to destroy Israel by undermining its support among the Palestinian population before Hamas gains the power to physically destroy Israel.

Beinart knows the preceding postulate to be true. More importantly President Obama and his highest military and diplomatic officials, whose statements of nonsupport for Israel are so well understood as support for Hamas where it counts, in Gaza, know the preceding postulate to be true.

Only two possibilities can explain the liberal embrace of such a logically indefensible position-one of such attenuated reason as to be simply ridiculous. Either the progressive liberal left is so dangerously deluded as to reject factual reality in the world's most volatile and menacing place or they are possessed of a truly demented embrace, through affinity or fear, of the world's most vile, brutal and hate filled people.

Either way, seriously, why would you trust these people with the lives of your children. Something to consider both the next time they fly and you vote.

Yard sign wars-Zaun dominates and the Gibbons mystery is answered.

2010-06-01T21:12:00.001-05:00

One of the habits I developed back in my party officer days was counting yard signs that I would see in my routine travels around the state. It is amazing how frequently the number and location of yard signs is indicative of the ultimate result, especially in primaries.

For the last several weeks I've noticed that Brad Zaun's yard signs easily outnumber his collective opponents by about a factor of four. Brad's dominance of the west suburban venue is probably closer to ten to one. Des Moines' west suburbs of Urbandale, Johnston, West Des Moines, Clive and Windsor Heights contains the greatest concentration of next Tuesday's electorate.

Mark Rees has a nice presence in the west suburbs and few good locations down 163 to Mahaska County. Mark has had some good campaign news recently.

Dave Funk has shown a real upsurge in the east suburbs. Dave's blue signs have taken the lead in Altoona and other parts east. We could use some input on Ankeny because I have not yet been up there much in the last six weeks.

A few Bertroche signs have popped up in the last couple of weeks. Pat's dad, longtime Des Moines lawyer Joe Bertroche's SE 14th Street office location provides Pat with visibility to tens of thousands of cars a day.

The mystery man has been Jim Gibbons. I've been as far east as Iowa County and as far south as Mahaska. Jim's got a few nice locations but overall almost no skin in the yard and barn sign game. Today I had occasion to travel to Boone via the Highway 17 detour, so I saw more of Madrid, Woodward and other even less populous parts of Iowa's "Fourth" Congressional District, Jim's place of residence. There were more Gibbons signs up along today's Dallas and Boone County route than had been previously spotted in Polk County and the rest of the Third District.

It may not be scientific but there's a reason every candidate spends a ton on yard signs in every election in every jurisdiction in every state in the country. Moreover, yard and barn sign activity and location are indicative of a candidate's overall ground game, turn out program and voter intensity. Ground game is more often that not the decisive factor in a close primary.

Given the recent disappearance of the Gibbons television ads it looks like the rumors that Rees has passed Gibbons for second in the polls might be true. If Dave Funk's recent upsurge in yard sign activity evidences a surge in supporter intensity then Jim may well slide all the way into fourth place. The two candidates are fighting for a common voter demographic and it looks like Mark is pulling out ahead in that constituency.

Iowa Primary Race: The questions that have not yet been answered.

2010-05-24T20:21:00.004-05:00

The debates are just about over and our primary Election Day draws near. As we enter the closing days of the campaign I find myself strangely unsatisfied by what I have heard from the candidates and the campaigns. Some of the most important and specific questions have yet to be asked, and, if asked, certainly not answered.

All three candidates say they will cut taxes. Every Republican says they will cut taxes. The rhetoric of lower taxes is no different than we've seen on a bienniel basis since, well, the 1850s. Given the current dire circumstances facing our state, is there a time better than now to establish some metrics by which we can evaluate which candidate is prepared to change the trajectory of state involvement in our lives, families and businesses?

So, to start, here's a simple questionnaire regarding taxes that every Republican deserves to have answered:

First, do we agree on first principles? I am a Republican because I believe in small government. Not just smaller government than the liberal progressives want but actually a small and limited government? Have any of the candidates actually committed to creating a small state government?

But talk is cheap. One's concept of a small government is, after all, ultimately subjective. I am confident that my concept of a small government is, shall we say, radically different from President Obama's concept of a small government. The proof of a committment to small government is perhaps best provided by a candidates description of who and what they will tax and to whom and what kind of services will government deliver. Let's start with the income side of the equation.

1. What state taxes will you cut?
2. By approximately how much?
3. How will you ensure that the burden of the tax cuts will not be shifted to other taxing authorities, like school districts, counties and municipalities?
4. How will you ensure that the burden of the tax cuts is not offset by increases in permits, fines, and other administrative and penal fees?

The other illuminating element is spending. All three of our candidates, like every Republican for 150 years, says they are for less spending. The Devil, as they say, is in details. What kind of a government will our candidate fund? Continue the nanny state that is bankrupting itself and our tax base or focus on the core missions of government. So,

1. What will you cut?
2. Approximately how much will that save?
3. How permanent are the cuts?
4. Will cutting the programs you suggest reduce the role of the government in our lives, families and businesses?

The VanderPlaats campaign website provides some idea of how he would answer the questions. MVP 2010 has put together a remarkably specific platform, in fact, although the competition sets the bar pretty low. When checking Branstad 2010 and Roberts for a Better Iowa I discovered the complete absence of a committment to do any specific act to change the status quo. Governor Branstad describes generally describes Iowa's economic situation when he left office but not a word about whose taxes he will cut, and, if so, by how much. Representative Roberts is even more vague, literally making nothing more than a generalized statement of a belief in lower taxes and smaller government.

For the last ten years our Republican candidates have given us nothing more than a very generalized statement of common beliefs as the reason to support them with our time, money and votes. That decade has given Iowa and the United States the Labor/Socialist/Democrat proto nanny state that is unfolding before us. If we want to hold elected officials accountable we have to have something more than the feel good pablum of thirty second spots.

Am I the only one that thinks we Republicans deserve some specific idea of what our leaders will do once the election is over if we are to get off the couch or the links and make the calls, lick the stamps and log the foot leather they will need to move Chet out of Terrace Hill?

Sestak and Menendez on Meet the Press: progressive liberal disingenuity on display.

2010-05-23T11:20:00.003-05:00

Joe Sestak

Democrats Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) and Senator wanna be Retired Admiral Joe Sestak (Penn), now the Democrat candidate for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania appeared on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday liberal gabfest earlier today. Menendez chairs the Democrat Senate Campaign Committee.

The reliably liberal host identified Sestak's support for TARP, the budget bill, the stimulus bill, the auto bailout/takeover and the healthcare takeover bills and then asked Sestak to identify any issue on which he did not support the Obama position. After a nearly two minute dissertation on the use of cliche's and synonyms for "independent" Sestak could not identify a single issue where he disagreed with the direction of Obama policy.

Bob Menendez

Bob Menendez then appeared and was asked a similar question about Sestak. Although Menendez was able to vomit the word salad of personal slurs about Linda McMahon that were apparently on his prepatory menu he could not identify any example of Sestak's independence from the liberal progressive leadership. Notwithstanding the facts he just uttered Menendez repeatedly described Sestak as an independent voice.

Maybe the better question was left unanswered; can one simultaneously engage in critical thinking and believe liberal progressives?

Zaun and Gibbons hit the air: maybe you can tell a lot from a commercial.

2010-05-21T16:10:00.007-05:00

Two of the candidates for the Republican Third District have now had television ads on the air for a week or longer.

Perry businessman Jim Gibbons released the first televsion spot. That first spot appears below.

Urbandale resident, state Senator Brad Zaun responded a few days later. Brad's ad appears below.

Brad Zaun's ad asks voters to support him because he believes a return to constitutional government is the answer to the nation's problems. Jim Gibbons' ad asks voters to support him because he used to be a wrestler at a university that, like Jim, does not reside in the Congressional district he seeks to represent.

Iowa Democrats, Senator Harkin and Congressman Boswell have made careers out of beating feel good Republican opponents whose primary pitch is personal likeability. The Gibbons campaign is, quite literally, cut from the same bolt of celluloid as its six failed predecessors.

The electorate wants real change in the the swirling downward spiral that afflicts the country. In light of the massacre of incumbents that we've seen for a year argument to the contrary is nothing more than defiance of reality. Even a cursory comparison of the Gibbons vs. Zaun television commercials vividly identifies the Republican candidate who is prepared to respond to the electorate's desire for ideas and solutions.

Governor Jan Brewer: The Face of Political Heroism

2010-05-20T22:02:00.006-05:00

When was the last time anyone really defied the political and media establishment? When was the last time anyone was willing to face the thought police of political correctness?

About 1980.

Jan Brewer may not be Ronald Reagan but she is certainly showing a bigger pair and a stiffer spine than anyone we've seen travel down the Republican road since the Gipper defied the imbecility of conventional wisdom about the relationship between the governed and the governors. Governor Brewer is even facing the onslaught of the progressive socialists' hardest and lowest blow-the incendiary slander of racism.

Don't lose your nerve Jan Brewer! Your 85% approval rating tells you all you need to know.

Hopefully Governor Brewer's soaring approval ratings, in a heavily Hispanic state no less, are singing the Ballad of Fenrir to other Republican leaders.

Race Baiting Redux: Reason on the Run (or why Arizona should motivate Iowa to action).

2010-05-02T11:08:00.010-05:00

The recent adoption of SB 1070 in Arizona has provided Iowa’s constitutionalist conservatives with a rare opportunity to provide a crushing blow to the liberal progressive agenda by exposing its foundation in hypocrisy and hatred. The solution is right before us if we take it.

Liberal progressives cannot, of course, deny that it is already a crime to enter the United States without valid immigration documents or to remain in the United States without valid immigration documents. Most liberal progressives at least pay lip service to the propriety of actually controlling the borders, particularly the increasingly dangerous southern border. Although one can never be sure when engaging in dialogue with the party of Orwellian double speak, we can presume from the later premise that most liberal progressives employ the common usage of “control” and mean the prevention of unlawful entry into the United States.

Liberal progressives do not deny that lawful immigrants are already required by federal law to have their valid immigration documents on their persons at all times. One can only presume the purpose of the federal requirement that immigration documents be carried on immigrants’ persons is to allow appropriate law enforcement and other public officials to identify lawful immigrants when the circumstances require it.

Arizona’s now amended new law does nothing more than provide state law enforcement officers with the same authority in Arizona that federal law enforcement officials have spent the last six decades exercising. Nonetheless, the liberal progressives rush to the charge of racism. Yes, their ancient ploy of race baiting has been manufactured to dimensions usually reserved for Republican SCOTUS nominees.

Almost (but not quite) needless to say, no liberal progressive has been able to make an argument to support the charge of racism. The failing of logic is neither surprising nor persuasive. Americans of every race and ethnicity are asked for documentation by some government actor tens of thousands of times a day, every day. Motorists, airline passengers, train passengers, entrants into every federal courthouses and office building around the world, every applicant for public assistance, and a myriad of other actors present their “papers” on an hourly basis. So the citizen or lawful resident, of Hispanic or other origin, already has “papers” and already routinely present them to government officials.

The Democrat immigration bill pending in Congress, as in pending right now, requires a national identification card, complete with biometric identification, for every citizen and lawful alien.

Yet the shrieking cries of racism grow louder. How then, ought conservative constitutionalists to respond to this attack?

One approach is a renewed round of pandering to the liberal media and academic monopoly. That approach has only slowed the rate of social disintegration-since we’re at the precipice of disaster perhaps a more robust approach is now in order?

So let us call them out and do the right thing. Polls in Arizona show more than two-thirds of the public support SB 1070. Only one in five oppose the law. Support among Republicans is even higher. Rather than run from SB 1070, let’s embrace, explain and defend it. There is no reason for the seven to be shouted down by the two.

It was good to see Bob Vander Plaats, early last week, embrace the amended Arizona statute for Iowa, where we have a growing problem with the exploitation of the loose border and those who unlawfully cross it. Rod Roberts climbed on board the train last night. In the same debate, Governor Branstad spoke for the minority opinion in our Party and did not support the amended Arizona law, noting that Iowa is not Arizona. Adoption of the Arizona plan will help keep it that way.

TFS

P.S. Before the libs shriek racist at me, please review my earlier posts on immigration. The governor’s office should have a division that does nothing but encourage immigration into Iowa and helps immigrants stay legal and obtain citizenship, and the AG should have a task force on employer enforcement of harsh financial penalties on employers. So there!

CNN Wins the Bagdad Bob Award

2009-09-10T19:07:00.002-05:00

CNN reported a dramatic leap in public support for President Obama’s government takeover plan. For those who haven’t seen it, carefully read the final two paragraphs of this link. The sagging news network, formerly known as the “Clinton News Network”, yes, honest to God, included a sample of 45% Democrats, a higher concentration of Democrats than appear in the voting population as a whole or the public in general.

Be sure to reference this story the next time you confront a liberal defaming Fox News for its purported biases.

Seven healthcare questions Obama won't answer.

2009-09-08T15:28:00.002-05:00

1. Assuming the figure of 47 million is correct, how can insurance coverage be provided to 15% more people with the same number of doctors, other providers and clinic hours and hospital beds without substantially increasing the cost?

2. If the answer to “1” above is “efficiency” then how will the efficiencies be created without overt rationing in either the underwriting or coverage process, or both?

3. If the answer to “1” above is “efficiency” then why will this federal entitlement be more economically efficient then existing Medicaid, Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration health programs, all of which objectively operate at billions of dollars of losses every year?

4. If the answer to “1” above is competition then how will fair competition work if one competitor-the government plan-makes the rules and has an unlimited ability to operated at a loss?

5. If the government underwriters use more generous underwriting criteria then private insurers currently use then how will extending existing coverages to include previously excluded pre-existing conditions be less expensive than existing coverages that exclude pre-existing conditions?

6. Why will the federal employees who manage the government program, who cannot be sued and are nearly impossible to fire, provide better customer service then private insurers who can be sued and who can fire their employees at will?

7. If the cost to employers to maintain existing health insurance is more than the cost of canceling existing coverages then why will employers not simply force their employees into the government program by canceling existing coverage, thereby negating the ability of the insured to “keep the insurance plan they’ve got”?

Red Flu-Do Not Send Your Children To School on 9.11

2009-09-02T20:11:00.007-05:00

The video linked below is the most blatant evidence of the Labor/Socialist/Democrats' rejection of the most basic principles of American liberty.

It might look innocuous but it most certainly isn’t. This video concludes with an actual and personal pledge to support Barack Obama. This video has been provided to elementary and secondary schools throughout the United States for presentation to children on September 11.

Yes, this is exactly what it appears to be: an attempt to create a cult of personality packaged around a message of social involvement that equates an individual politician with the concept of social good. What more chilling example of Hitlerian totalitarianism has ever been attempted in the history of this country? Even worse, the target group is children, as in Josef Goebbels equation “today your children, tomorrow the world”.

Republicans, conservatives, and patriotic Americans who are committed to the concept of liberty should not send their children to school on September 11 to protest this video. Keep them at home. Read some real American history with your children, like how a million Americans died to end slavery in this country (although the Civil War is a historical fact that is lost on the idiot celebrities who are pledging to end slavery in the video); how we liberated a billion people in WW2 and five hundred million more in the Cold War; how we created the first country on Earth dedicated to individual liberty and not collective or elite rights; and how we created the most hospitable and welcoming country that ever existed that has welcomed more immigrants from more places on the planet to a level of prosperity and individual liberty that was inconceivable in their homelands, where ever those homelands might have been.

We need to fight this evil. The concept of pledging personal allegience to an individual political leader is indistinguishable from the North Korean indoctrination of children, to use a more 21st Century example. This country was born on the premise that citizens are loyal to the country, not its leaders.

Remember what 9.11 really means, and it surely isn't loyalty to "the one for whom we've all been waiting", to quote our Dear Leader describing himself.

The Gross Poll: Inisght into the decade of defeat.

2009-08-31T20:41:00.003-05:00

Doug Gross’ recent poll demonstrates the distinction between a boxer and a puncher. The whole premise of the poll assumes that we Republicans are a one punch palooka whose only chance is the haymaker from Hell.

Given the economic collapse our nation faces, and Iowa’s role as arguably the worst business climate in the nation, there really cannot be any argument that the economy is our best punch. To require polling data to confirm the foregoing tautology bespeaks a level of either or both political or ideological insecurity that is almost in itself disqualifying from leadership. This insecurity has caused us defeat, followed by even greater defeat because it has afflicted so much of our Republican leadership.

So, like a smart boxer, let us lead with our best punch. The next question is to decide on precisely what is that punch.

Our best punch certainly is not going to be the mere juxtaposition of Republican use of government to empower and enrich large, powerful economic units, so as to allow them to better victimize the average Iowan, against Democrat use of government to enrich and empower government itself, unions and the even the more bizarre collection of micro-interest protoplasm that make up their party, so as to better victimize the average Iowan. What is good for Principal, Wells Fargo, BoA, ethanol barons, etc… is not necessarily always good for the average American or Iowan. Our leadership has myopically assumed that the average Iowa voter knows nothing. While the average Iowan might not fully understand actuarial tables or the economic theories that justify social and corporate welfare, they surely do know their own life’s circumstances and they know what helps and hurts them-AND WE WERE NOT HELPING THEM! Merely doing less damage than the Democrats is not ever going to provide us with the majority building mandate we need to reverse the last twenty to forty years of government growth.

Here’s another historical, and hence political reality, a reality so obvious that any political leader, not enmeshed in only their life and interests (the latter, of course, being a subset of the former) should require polling data to know -people are pissed at “big business” because big business, much like big government, takes even the coppers from the eyes of the dead as they cross the River Styx. Just blathering about “smaller government” and “tax cuts” isn’t going to work-at least if the Republican politician’s objective is to obtain office for the purpose of governing in a manner that is more, rather than less, like our platform, and the beliefs and interests of the average Republican, who statistically is a small business owner or employee of a small business, family farmer, etc...

Moreover, it probably won’t work electorally more than once because the problems faced by the average Iowan are very much real. People want solutions so badly that they were willing to buy into the historically disastrous anti (or perhaps “contra”) Americanism that the Democrats offered in the last two electoral cycles.

Replicating the Republican legislative agenda, both here and in D.C., of 2000-2006 is certainly not the answer; the public has already weighed, measured and found that agenda to be sadly insufficient to solve the problems of the everyday Iowan. Accepting this fact will go a long way toward rebuilding confidence in our party. “Blame storming” has not really advanced our agenda, although it has helped to keep reform out of our party and given us a somewhat deserved reputation for being unwelcoming. Bankruptcy court is filled with companies that blamed the customer for not buying its product.

So, let us come up with a real agenda of governmental and economic reform that addresses employment and immigration security; long term and sustained economic development that is dependent on government providing nothing than a generically good business climate; health care, health insurance (and insurance in general), social service and banking reform; and then explain it to the voters. Or, we could keep repeating shopworn tag lines that remind the voter of nothing more than what they don’t like about Republicans.

Then, how about having a second punch? A third? A fourth? The public is with us on virtually every social issue, why on earth would we run from popular positions? Of course, that too might require actually saying something other than “family values” or “Christian” because the party of Mark Sanford, Larry Craig and David Vitter has to come up with new and considerably better ways to explain the importance of social virtue. Homosexuality is viewed as morally failed in virtually every culture, including the one in which we live, through all of recorded history so why do we need to speak in code? Abortion, even more contrary to the law of nature itself than homosexuality, is as perennially prominent as class warfare and race baiting in liberal campaign rhetoric. The voters already agree with us so why on Earth should we not we make the voters feel good about that agreement. Most people feel oppressed by a politically correct liberal media and academia that limits the expression of the conservative majority to whispered tones in the privacy of one’s home. We should end that oppression.

While the occupant of Terrace Hill and the leadership offices under the Dome make a lot of difference to the people who trade in power and government largesse, if we don’t come up with real solutions to real problems before the Democrats perfect the one-party total state that is their objective those occupants will not make much difference to the average Iowan on the ground. The Republican that has the insight to grasp this historical moment and the courage to exploit it will crush their rivals in a primary and the Big Lug in November. Otherwise, while we might scare the hell out of the public and gain slimish legislative majorities for a while, and some among us will make a killing, it won’t impress the public with any long term affection for us and it certainly will not stop, much less reverse, the gradual decline into the moral, emotional and political bankruptcy of socialism.

Propaganda doesn’t sell: The New York Times goes on welfare.

2009-07-18T11:28:00.003-05:00

Great news this Saturday morning! It appears that the failing New York Times is seeking funding from and through non-profit charity.

As we all know, the New York Times has become nothing more than a pathetic shell of a once noble and important component of informing the electorate. Now the nobility has been replaced by indecorous mendacity and the information with agitprop.

Poynter Online reported yesterday that the NY Times is “considering” funding from non-profit foundations. Such funding is, of course, necessary because the Times is no longer capable of earning sufficient advertising income.

Maybe the Times could have avoided such fiscal pandering had it not driven Republicans, conservatives and fair minded independents from its circulation universe.

Update: Barbara Boxer and the case for Jim Crow.

2009-07-16T18:47:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you Exhibit A-a paradigmatic demonstration that the identity politics of Jim Crow is still thriving in the womb that bred it.

Continuing good numbers for the GOP: an opportunity not a guarantee.

2009-07-10T19:12:00.004-05:00

As summer’s heat brings dehydration to so many riparian landscapes the catastrophic reality of the "change" for which they voted in 2006 and 2008. The Obama Labor/Socialist/Democrat agenda is therapeutically baking America’s delusion producing symptoms of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) out of the body politic. With its improved lucidity the body politic is, in turn, returning to the party of reality and reason, the GOP.

Rasmussen reported yesterday that Republicans are leading Democrats in eight of the ten regularly polled issues. A thorough review of Rasmussen’s various internal questions provides even better news for pachyderms everywhere.

Perhaps most telling are Rasmussen’s latest ideologically self-identification numbers. Late last month, Gallup disclosed more than forty percent of all American voters consider themselves to be ideologically “conservative”. Yesterday’s Rasmussen report corroborates Gallup’s findings. Rasmussen shows 54% of the voters think the average L/S/D congressman is more liberal than are they, the average voter, while only 36% think the average Republican is more conservative that are they, the average voter. Numbers like that are powerful indicia of a growing public realization that conservative and Republican solutions, based on the traditional engines of individual and social success, create the greatest opportunity for the greatest good for the greatest number of people, as imperfect as we may be.

Rasmussen and Gallup’s data echoes Democrat uber-pollster Doug Schoen’s statements that non-party voters are trending “functional” Republican. As the public experiences the cost and risk associated with its generational flirtation with liberal fantasy it realizes how utterly misled it has been by a liberal press devoted to destroying a Republican president and a Republican president unwilling to fight back. So now the public realizes that turning the country over to L/S/D madness doesn’t solve its problems, it only worsens them.

Americans are willing to give us another look. Americans want conservative solutions. Product interest, however, is insufficient to assure product purchase. If we are going to win we have to provide those solutions in a credible way to a frustrated and suspicious electorate.

Republicans are, indeed, engaged in a major identity crisis. We had better find the right product before we worry about the salesman.

Notoriety for Andrea

2009-07-08T09:15:00.003-05:00

We occasionally report on matters other than politics. Occasionally we even report on things personal to the Real Sporer himself. Yesterday, Ted’s partner Andrea (i.e. the “Flanagan” in “Sporer & Flanagan P.C.”) received a little publicity herself.

The Des Moines Register’s “Juice” publication gave the above pictured Andrea a nice write up.

Congratulations, Junior.

Castro + Ortega + Chavez + Zelaya = Obama (via HJRes 5)

2009-06-29T16:06:00.004-05:00

After initially giving tacit endorsement of the Iranian Islamofacist crackdown that crushed the hopes for democracy in Iran the Obama Administration quickly offered an even more insightful and illuminative display of Labor/Socialist/Democrats' embrace of dictatorships everywhere.

While music fans and child molesters the world over were mourning the death of Micheal Jackson, an ally of Hugo Chavez, Honduran President Mel Zelaya produced a hemispheric thriller of his own. Zelaya was looking to follow in the Chavez footsteps as “President for Life” in Honduras. Zelaya had planned a rigged referendum (we’re sure Jimmy Carter was invited as the perpetual useful idiot that dictators employ to validate their gaffed electoral facades-see Venezuela and Iran) by which to set aside the inconvenient constitutions that term limited their respective unpopular regimes.

Unlike the politicized Venezualan military, the Honduran military demonstrated it's committment to protect their nation from all enemies, foreign and domestic, grabbed Zelaya and promptly exiled him to Costa Rica.

Just like Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Zelaya planned to end Honduran democracy with a whimper. After Zelaya called a referendum that would have amended the Honduran Constitution to allow him to serve unlimited terms, the Honduran Supreme Court held such a referendum cannot be called by the President, only the National Assembly and only after a two thirds vote (oddly, exactly what the Honduran Constitution says). Zelaya simply ignored both the Court and the Constitution and obtained ballots from……..you guessed it, Hugo Chavez. The Honduran Attorney General then said that he would prosecute anyone participating in holding the plainly unlawful election.

The commanding general of the Honduran Army told Zelaya that El Presidente would have to comply with the Supreme Court's order. Zelaya then fired the general. While the Supreme Court was reinstalling the commanding general thugs working for Zelaya apparently stormed the warehouse in which the ballots were stored and began distributing them. The Honduran Army then acted to enforce the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court and the Honduran Attorney General and removed Zelaya from power.

Where President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the whole cadre of Democrat leftists could find only moral equivalency between the Iranian mullahs and the hundreds of thousands of freedom seeking protestors it had no such handicap in supporting a local thug like Zelaya.

Obama quickly declared the coup illegal (although the Honduran army was acting to enforce orders of its Supreme Court and AG to prevent Zelaya from conducting an election to make himself President for life) and is even now aggressively promoting Zelaya’s cause to the United Nations. A mere casual or narrow observation of the Obama Administration's outrage over Honduras could create a humanitarian basis for all the hubbub about Zelaya. After all, the L/S/Ds have exiled global terror threats to tropical resorts like the Bahamas or Palua and the Hondurans sent Zelaya to Costa Rica. But a more careful examination reveals something much more sinister and dangerous is afoot.

Americans need to take a good hard look at the nations Obama perceives as allies and enemies of the United States. President Obama has been unable to find word one to criticize the demon regimes in North Korea and Iran, other than the academic discussions that such regimes’ conduct may be destabilizing. However, from the day on which President Obama took office he has repeatedly insulted the British, the Canadians and the Israelis while supporting Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, China, Russia, and now Honduras.

While the Obama foreign policy objectives seem oddly inconsistent with the last thirty years of American policy (don’t forget it was President Clinton who made regime change in Iraq official American policy) the pattern is even more frightening.

Even as these words are written, the Obama Administration allies have introduced Joint House Resolution No. 5 before Congress. HJ Res. 5 will repeal the 22nd Amendment to our own Constitution-term limits for the President. Apparently, President Obama now views himself as an acolyte of dictators Chavez, Ortega and Zelaya and not merely domestic racists, radicals and terrorists like Jeremiah Wright and William Ayres.

Yeah, where are those jobs?

2009-06-27T21:10:00.003-05:00

Republican House Leader John Boehner is surely beginning to grow on us here at TRS. Boehner started slow in his first two years. Not surprisingly, Boehner was unable to create a Republican identity separate from that of the Bush Administration. Now, in confronting the most reckless and irresponsible social and economic agenda in American history Boehner is beginning to find his footing.

Boehner, like millions of other Americans undoubtedly recall the Labor/Socialist/Democrat mindless eight year attack on George W. Bush’s economy. Notwithstanding the inherited Clinton recession, the inherited corporate scandals, the inherited growing energy crises (just ask “Grayout” Davis about that one in 2002) and, of course, the most devastating exogenous shock to ever strike the American economy, 9.11, the L/S/D claimed that 5.4% unemployment was a “jobless recovery” back in 2004.

Boehner, like millions of other Americans undoubtedly also recall that the L/S/D claimed that the Bush economy, roaring along at full employment throughout all of 2006 was in dire need of change or the American dream would be gone with the wind.

Finally, Boehner, like millions of other Americans undoubtedly recall President Obama’s demand for a dead of night passage of the fiscal fantasy described as his trillion dollar “stimulus” package, without congressional, much less national, debate or unemployment would reach eight percent.

When unemployment blew past that eight percent worst case scenario, the President floated his usual astucious red herring with the datum defying claim that the stimulus was "saving jobs", nothwithstanding the complete absence of any economic evidence to support such macro gibberish. Now, with unemployment over nine percent and headed toward double digits, Boehner asks a simple question, where are the jobs?

Well L/S/Ds, where are they?

Battle of the Burqas

2009-06-22T18:06:00.003-05:00

The French, whose cultural and political significance is so often cited by American liberals as worthy of emulation here in the USA, are now actually outlawing the wearing of the burqa and the najib. The cosmopolitan French President described the burqa and the najib as follows: “The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement.”

On the other hand, President Obama addressed the issue through his usual combination of dissimilation and multicultural pander. First, the President indicated that the burqa and the najib were merely a scarf covering a woman’s head. A burqa does indeed cover a woman’s hair so one cannot say the President is lying. However, a burqa also covers the entire body from head to foot with only a mesh screen over the eyes. A najib is a scarf, typically Johnny Cash style (all black for the music neophyte) with slits for the eyes. So, the President was also concealing the whole truth.

The President then panders and implies that burqas and nijabs are welcome in America. President Obama apparently sees nothing wrong with a Seventh Century cult practice, already rejected throughout most of the Islamic world itself, designed to deny women all identity.

One is well led to wonder at the extent of the self-deceptive sophistry that is undertaken by the NOW gang, those aging pants suit wearing and bra burning free lovers of 1968, to reconcile President Obama’s embrace of the ultimate physical symbol of gender repression with their giddy support for President Obama?

The increasingly irrelevant feminist leadership could regain some desperately needed credibility, and possibly self-esteem, by joining the Republicans, the party that gave women the right to vote, in our historical and international battle to vindicate the rights and improves the life of women throughout the world. While the answer is probably “no”, as it was when President Clinton was serving Arkansas red-hot to the interns and volunteers in the White House, the invitation is certainly worth the extending.

Vive la France!

A new week begins with even better numbers.

2009-06-21T20:00:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah, Rasmussen’s Presidential Approval Index goes negative for the first time in the Obama Presidency.

Thirty two percent strongly approve of the Obama job performance and thirty four percent strongly disapprove.

We have nothing to fear from criticizing the Marxist regime of poverty at home and appeasement abroad except a media that already hates all things Republican and conservative.

Let’s go get ‘em this week.

Green Monday-Freedom for Iran!

2009-06-20T22:06:00.000-05:00

Should we not all wear green on Monday in solidarity with those Iranians that truly do want a democratic government and a place in the mainstream world?

They may not be a majority and they may not be entirely to our liking but they are certainly better than the genocidal terror regime that governs the present Iran.

We may very well be watching history and, if so, Americans should do what we have always done and stand in support of freedom and democracy.

So stand and be counted among the international supporters of freedom on Monday, June 22, 2009.

Good News-Good Republican Numbers

2009-06-20T12:41:00.000-05:00

At a time that the mainstream media is doing its disingenuous best to perform last rites for conservatism and the GOP the actual numbers stubbornly resist surrendering the ghost.

This morning we awaken to Gallup reporting the continued erosion of public approval of President Obama’s agenda of Marxist poverty at home (except, of course, for the “proletarian” elite) and appeasement and surrender abroad. Gallup now shows Obama’s job approval slipping again, this time to a historic low of 58%. A seven percent drop among non-party voters leads the decline.

While some would say 58% is evidence of widespread public support real history, which did not begin with election of Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, speaks to the contrary. George W. Bush, who won by a much smaller margin, was at 57% job approval at the same time in his presidency. Bill Clinton sat twenty percent behind at 37% with Ronald Reagan little better at 43%. George H.W. Bush was sitting pretty in the low 60s in June of 1989. We couldn’t locate a June 1977 poll for Jimmy “Ayatollah” Carter but his first year average was 63% so it’s safe to assume June was close to the average.

So maybe the world in learning that our All Powerful Leader is not, after all, the one for whom we’ve all been waiting.

Even better, Gallup polling data release earlier this found self-identified conservatives were the largest segment of the American electorate at 40% with liberals at a mere 21%. The conservative numbers are superior to the same time in 1993 and we all know what happened in ’94.

America does need substantial change but it appears that the public is learning that the Labor/Socialist/Democrat vision of a federal government that decides what we eat, what we drive, where we live, how much we earn and how much medical care we receive is not the change they had in mind.

Bahamas Tommy Harkin...Race Baiting...Energy Tax

2009-06-18T18:02:00.001-05:00

So, Bahamas Tommy Harkin resorts to race baiting to deflect attention from his support for the Waxman/Markey energy tax by sponsoring a resolution to apologize for, wait for it .......

Slavery. Yes, slavery.

Weren't the 360,222 Union Army deaths in the Civil War a fairly vivid expression of regret for slavery? Like most liberals, Harkin ignores the nobility bespoken by that statistic.

A Tale of Two Times

2009-05-27T20:49:00.003-05:00

History always repeats itself.

1935-Nazi Germany violates the Treaty of Versailles (that ended WW 1) and remilitarizes Germany with a new navy, air force, and armored and air borne divisions. The US, UK and France protest and complain to the League of Nations.

1935-Italy invades Ethiopia. The US, UK and France protest and complain to the League of Nations.

1936-Nazi Germany violates the Treaty of Versailles and remilitarizes the border with France. The US, UK and France protest and complain to the League of Nations.

1937-Japan invades China at the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing. The US, UK and France protest and complain to the League of Nations.

1937-Nazi Germany violates the Treaty of Versailles and occupies Austria. The US, UK and France protest and complain to the League of Nations.

1938-Nazi Germany violates the Treaty of Versailles and occupies half of Czechoslovakia. The US, UK and France protest and complain to the League of Nations.

1939-Nazi Germany violates both the Treaty of Versailles and the Munich accords of the same year and occupies the remainder of free Czechoslovakia. The West didn’t even bother to protest.

1939-Nazi Germany invades Poland. France and the UK declare war on Germany, and then do nothing. The US does nothing.

1940-Japan occupies the entire Chinese coast. The US does nothing.

1940-Western Europe is occupied, the UK stands alone. The US begins nothing more than Lend Lease.

1941-Japan occupies French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia). The US finally implements trade sanctions.

1941-Japan attacks the US at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam and elsewhere.

Now, a mere seventy years later, western and especially the American pacifists are re-learning the lessons of appeasement. Like their fascist god fathers of the 1930 and 1940s, the monsters in Teheran and Pyongyang are again testing the West. The mullahs and their handpicked lunatic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the most bizarre and brutal dictatorship of the Kim dynasty in North Korea have taken stock of recent history and now are following an all too familiar historical road to Armageddon.

The North Koreans have been slowly been evading compliance with the 1953 Cease Fire agreements, while building a relatively advanced nuclear armament and an ICBM system with which to deliver it. Bill Clinton might have been the last American President to have the ability to stop the North Koreans short of war back in 1994; but then again Kim might have already been able to deliver dirty weapons to Tokyo when then President Clinton so famously recalled the planes, which would certainly explain the recall. President Bush scared the Koreans for several years but then the American left convinced them that the politically weakened President would not attack them and they resumed nuclear testing.

The Iranians have been taking and promoting acts of war against the United States for more than thirty years while also pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The Iranians have seen the United States doing essentially nothing to contain them. Even worse, the Iranians learned how they could benefit from the Western liberal rage at the Bush Doctrine of preemption. There is a reason the Iranians and North Koreans and their terror allies cheered the election of the weakest American President since at least Herbert Hoover.

The world has become very much more dangerous in the last twenty-four hours as North Korea has formally abrogated the 1953 Cease Fire; begun the rapid testing of numerous new missiles and delivery systems having already threatened to attack American and South Korean ships.

Change indeed America. Change indeed.

The Supreme Court pick: Justice denied, racism and sexism exalted.

2009-05-26T19:16:00.005-05:00

The loud wrenching sound and terrifying tremor that was observed in Washington DC and north-east Virginia was not an earth quake, tectonic or political. Geologists and historians have confirmed that shaking that was seen and heard earlier this morning was not, as initially thought, a natural disaster. No, the terrestrial tumult was caused by the simultaneous attempts of Justices Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Tom Clark, Harry Blackmun and William Brennan to rise from the their graves in Arlington National Cemetary in protest of today’s nominee to fill one of the chairs that they once occupied on our nation’s court of last resort.

President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor confirms that the Labor/Socialist/Democrat social agenda prioritizes social organization in the face of not just constitutional barriers like; say, the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection, but the basic principle of the American judiciary-justice. As reported in the May 14 edition of the New York Times, the proposed, and probably inevitable Justice, actually uttered the following words:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Nothing has to be read into Judge Sotomayor’s words-she has actually stated her belief that race and gender alone produce superior judicial results. Can anyone who followed the borking of Justices Thomas and Alito, and Chief Justices Rehnquist and Roberts, much less Judge Robert Bork himself, imagine the L/S/D response had any of those Republican nominees stated a belief that white men inherently produce better conclusions and purer justice?

Such a statement of racial and gender bias is antithetical to everything for which historic warriors for equality, like Justices Warren, Black, Douglas, Clark, and so many others, worked into American common and Constitutional law. The majesty of the United States derives in no small part from our search to create a blind law that identically treats similarly situated people. Now, those Justices are told that their legacy to us has been wrong-the law needs “empathy” through racial and gender based life experience.

Then again, these are the same people who invented Jim Crow so maybe the 21st Century L/S/D embrace of racism and sexism should not be all that surprising after all.