By Mr. Curmudgeon

Republicans gathered in President Obama’s old stomping grounds in Hawaii to strategize how best to capitalize on the discontent growing in the country at the injustices heaped on a free people by hope and change. There seems to be only one problem – the elephant in the tiki room. Republican National Committee (NRC) member Bill Crocker of Texas urged his fellow Republicans to “present candidates who will be attractive.” By “attractive,” he means to the Tea Party. He said independents and conservatives “are really dissatisfied with our political conduct over the past several years.” He was referring to the Democrat-Lite policies of compassionate conservative George W. Bush.

According to the New York Times, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele “disputed any suggestion that the Tea Party movement was a problem for his party. ‘I don’t see it as a rivalry,’ he said. ‘What I’m saying is we want to be your partner in the same fight.’” Steele presumes too much.

Dick Armey of FreedomWorks, a conservative organization closely allied with the Tea Party, said, “This is not a situation where the grass-roots activists are saying, ‘What can we do to make ourselves attractive to Republicans?’ It is ‘What can we do to help the Republicans understand what they must do to be attractive to us.’”

To that end, James Bopp of Indiana proposed a 10-point litmus test Republican candidates must pass to secure the party’s financial support:

(1) Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill.

(2) Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare.

(3) Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation.

(4) Workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check.

(5) Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.

(6) Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.

(7) Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.

(8) Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.

(9) Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion.

(10) The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

Bopp makes the point that for far too long Democratic opponents have relished “criticizing the Republican Party for not being true to our conservative principles, which was unfortunately true with regard to support for spending, deficits and bailouts during the Bush administration…They will attack any effort to reassure voters that we are serious about restoring our conservative bona fides.”

The Obama-friendly website Thinkprogress.org was kind enough to provide a list of Republicans that have been so helpful to Democrats in the past:

– The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus) was passed with support from Republican Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

– Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA) voted for the health reform bill passed by the House.

– The Waxman Markey cap and trade clean energy bill was passed with support from GOP Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Mike Castle (R-DE), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Dave Reichert (R-WA), and Chris Smith (R-NJ).

– In 2007, the House passed the Employee Free Choice Act with support from Republican Reps. Tim Murphy (R-PA), Don Young (R-AK), Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Peter King (R-NY), and Steve LaTourette (R-OH).

– The McCain-Kennedy 2006 immigration bill would have “legalized millions of undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. if they paid fines, paid back taxes and learned English.” Republican Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Dick Lugar (R-IN), George Voinovich (R-OH), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bob Bennett (R-UT), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) voted for the bill.

– In 2007, both Republican Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) cosponsored resolutions opposing a troop surge in Iraq. In the House, Reps. Bob Inglis (R-SC), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Dean Heller (R-NV), Walter Jones (R-NC), Tim Johnson (R-IL), Mike Castle (R-DE), Howard Coble (R-NC), Ron Paul (R-TX), Tom Petri (R-WI), Fred Upton (R-MI), and Steve LaTourette (R-OH) supported a resolution opposing the Iraq surge. In addition, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Walter Jones (R-NC), Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), John Duncan (R-TN), and Tim Johnson (R-IL) have signed onto a letter opposing a troop surge in Afghanistan.

– Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Dick Lugar (R-IN) both voted to remove North Korea from the state-sponsors of terror list. Sen. Lugar also voted against a 2007 resolution urging action against Iran. In the House, Reps. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Ron Paul (R-TX), and Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) voted against further sanctions against Iran in 2007.

– Earlier this year, Sen. John Thune’s (R-SD) “concealed carry” gun amendment failed to receive the 60 votes it needed to pass. Republican Senators Dick Lugar (R-IN) and George Voinovich (R-OH) opposed the measure.

It’s clear the Republican Party has a long way to go before independent Tea Partiers will trust an organization made up of so many habitual compromisers.

In remarks to the House Republican leadership in Baltimore, Obama said of the American people, “They sent us to Washington to work together, to get things done, and to solve the problems that they’re grappling with every single day.” That sounds eerily similar to Sen. John McCain’s losing 2008 campaign mantra.

The NRC’s Bill Crocker said, “No more Scozzafavas, please…” He, of course, was referring to the liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava who was backed by the establishment of her party in New York State’s 23rd Congressional District special election. The Tea Party threw its full support and money into the campaign of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, who was narrowly defeated. The Tea Party then had better success helping Republican Scott Brown win Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. I have yet to hear an adequate explanation from squishy Republicans as to why compromising with a destructive Democratic Party agenda of expanded government power and unsustainable spending is preferable to limited government, maximum freedom for the citizen and a sound economy. If Republican moderates won’t consider abandoning disastrous compromise for the sake of their party, might they at long last consider doing it for the sake of their country?

By Mr. Curmudgeon

The muddle-minded moneyman made Manhattan mayor, Michael Bloomberg, reversed his initial support for President Obama’s decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed mere blocks from New York City’s Ground Zero. When Attorney General Eric Holder first informed Bloomberg that his city’s courts would try enemy combatants as common criminals, Bloomberg announced, “…New York City stands ready to assist the federal court in the administration of justice in any way necessary. I have great confidence the New York Police Department and federal authorities will handle security expertly.”

Then his honor the mayor got an ear-full of complaints from angry and nervous constituents that caused Bloomberg to change his muddled mind in a New York minute. “It’s going to cost an awful lot of money and disturb an awful lot of people. Can we provide security? Yes. Could you provide security elsewhere? Yeah, and I mean — the suggestion of a military base is probably a reasonably good one. Relatively easy to supply — to provide security. They tend to be outside of cities so that they don’t disrupt other people.” Here’s a suggestion, your honor: how’s about Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

It appears the Obama Administration is getting the message that trying holy warriors as common criminals was a big mistake. “I think I can acknowledge the obvious,” an administration source told the New York Times, “We’re considering other options.”

Obama and Mayor Bloomberg aren’t the only ones attempting to repair their image. In a newly released audio message purported to be from 9/11 instigator Osama bin Laden, the cave dwelling knuckle-dragger claims he is not only fighting for Allah but to prevent global warming. He joins with President Obama in castigating the person he feels is at the root of the world’s – if not the universe’s – collapse:

“The talk about climate change is not an intellectual indulgence. Rather, it is a reality. All of the industrialized countries, and especially the large ones, bear the responsibility for the crisis of the greenhouse effect. Most of them, though, rallied around the Kyoto accords, and agreed to limits on emissions of harmful gases. However, Bush Jr., and Congress before him, rejected this accord in order to please the large corporations, which are themselves the ones responsible for speculation, monopolies, and the rise in the cost of living. And they are behind globalization and its tragic consequences. Then, when these criminals’ own evil deeds did them in, the heads of state rush to rescue them with public funds…They are the true terrorists.”

And you thought bin Laden couldn’t receive MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann’s talking points from his cave in Waziristan. Bin Laden obviously prepared for his message having viewed a pirated DVD of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Whether it’s Al Gore, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Michael Bloomberg or Osama bin Laden, ideology is not the glue that holds these misfits together. It’s utopian lunacy.

By Mr. Curmudgeon

The New York Times photo said it all: there was President Obama, Republican Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor, eyes closed and heads bowed in prayer. The president was meeting with Congressional Republicans in Baltimore to convince them to join Democrats in growing government power beyond the limits of fiscal prudence and at the expense of individual liberty.

“I don’t think the American people want us to focus on our job security,” Obama told the assembled lawmakers. One can only hope the president’s call for Republicans to commit hara-kiri was enough to arouse the most cataleptic Republican attendant.

Obama fondly recalled past support given power-crazed Democrats by such renowned Republican compromisers as Bob Dole and Howard Baker, “that’s not a radical bunch, but if you were to listen to the debate,” the president said of Tea Party opposition to ObamaCare, “you’d think this was some Bolshevik plot.” Obama’s prayer meeting with Republicans is a Hail Mary play to drive a wedge between an impotent Republican leadership and an effective and potent Tea Party. The White House hopes to push Republicans into compromising with Obama’s radical agenda or paint them as “the party of no.” Taking their cue from the president, Republicans should man-up and declare themselves “the party of no to Bolshevik plots.”

By Mr. Curmudgeon

In his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, President Obama told all who would listen that he and the yawning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid see eye to eye on one important issue. To that end, the president redefined redistributive payoffs to targeted constituents as “tax cut.”

“…We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college.
I thought I’d get some applause on that one.

“…Two hundred thousand work in construction and clean energy, 300,000 are teachers and other education workers. Tens of thousands are cops, firefighters, correctional officers, first responders. And we’re on track to add another one-and-a-half-million jobs to this total by the end of the year.

“The plan that has made all of this possible, from the tax cuts to the jobs, is the Recovery Act. That’s right — the Recovery Act, also known as the stimulus bill.”

It was a longer version of his answer to Joe The Plumber, who asked then candidate Obama if he would raise taxes. “I think when you spread the wealth around,” said Obama, “it’s good for everybody.” In other words, the president and Harry Reid are on the same page when it comes to buying power with your dollars.

WILSON v. OBAMA

The last time President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress, the month was September and the issue was health care. “There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants,” said the president. “This, too, is false – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.” In response to the president’s false claim, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled, “you lie!”

In last night’s State of the Union speech, the president scolded the U.S Supreme Court for striking down provisions in the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law. Obama said, “…last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections.” In truth, what the Supreme Court did was uphold the supremacy of a two-hundred-year-plus First Amendment guarantee of free speech. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito, in his front row seat, shook his head at the president’s mischaracterization and mouthed the words, “not true.”

Rep. Wilson made the charge, and the people of Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts recently rendered their electoral verdicts on the president’s veracity. In the court of public opinion, in the matter of Joe Wilson v. Barack Obama, Justice Alito has affirmed that President Obama is indeed a liar.

By Mr. Curmudgeon

“Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time for something new,” said President Obama in his State of the Union address. “Let’s try common sense. Let’s invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt. Let’s meet our responsibility to the people who sent us here.” The president, of course, is wrong. The “tired battles” Obama refers to are confrontations that have raged on this continent for over two hundred years – many on real battlefields. The president’s words are an attempt to normalize the abnormal and destructive drive of his party to impoverish our country and thereby destroy our freedoms. His speech was also an attempt to disarm the army of his discontented countrymen who muster to fight the “tired battles” with the president and his party this election year. In this regard, his speech was a failure. The slow death of his health care program is just the first of many battles to come. Alexis de Tocqueville said, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” The election of Scott Brown was one such repair.

In what must have been music to the Tea Party’s ears the president insisted Congress press ahead with ObamaCare. “As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed.” The anger, Mr. President, will grow stronger as you and your party continues ignoring America’s objection to government-run health care. Many more Americans prefer the status quo to ObamaCare, which was built on a foundation of bribery and back room deals.

Then the president spoke directly to Tea Party conservatives. “From some on the right, I expect we’ll hear a different argument – that if we just make fewer investments in our people, extend tax cuts for wealthier Americans, eliminate more regulations, and maintain the status quo on health care, our deficits will go away. The problem is, that’s what we did for eight years.” The president’s clumsy attempt to lump Tea Party conservatives together with “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush won’t wash. The formation of the Tea Party was a repudiation of Democrat-Lite “compassionate conservatism.” In fact, many bipartisan Republicans face uphill battles this election year for their complicity in leading the country down its current ruinous path.

Then Obama addressed the disaffected voters of Massachusetts and Scott Brown, the 41st no-vote on ObamaCare. “Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.” And with this short statement, the president got the heart of the “tired battles” he alluded to earlier in his speech. It is Obama the community organizer’s belief that the coercive power of the state is the great perpetual motion machine of economic and social evolution. Like the great utopians of history, Obama never stops to consider the lives and liberties of those crushed under the weight of that behemoth machine. His utopian definition of “leadership” makes him deaf to the will of the people if it subverts his narrow and dangerous will to power. Just saying no to Martha Coakely in Massachusetts led to Scott Brown saying no to ObamaCare. Saying no to an army of Martha Coakely’s standing for re-election will add a full-throated no chorus to the president’s brand of leadership. In 2012, the hope is that a free people will say no to being organized by saying no to the organizer himself.

By Mr. Curmudgeon

After suffering a stunning defeat to impose government-run health care on the American people, President Bill Clinton quickly changed direction, announcing in his 1996 State of the Union address “the era of big government is over.” Bubba was a realist, which saved his presidency and gained him a second term in office. President Obama, however, is a utopian. The New York Times reports, “When Mr. Obama presents his first State of the Union address on Wednesday evening, aides said he would accept responsibility, though not necessarily blame, for failing to deliver swiftly on some of the changes he promised a year ago. But he will not, aides said, accede to criticism that his priorities are out of step with the nation’s.”

Tonight’s State of the Union address will be entertaining in one important regard: the president will stand before Congress and the nation in an attempt to convince us that we need him more than he needs us. This is sweet music to the ears of the Tea Party.

By Mr. Curmudgeon

“Beneath the surface of their formally polite, if aloof, reserve bubbled resentment that their one-time foe was now a general. To them, he was a double traitor who had rebelled against the mother country before turning on his fellow Americans,” writes historian Dave Richard Palmer of Benedict Arnold. “No one trusts – or for that matter, likes – a traitor.” Sen. Arlen Specter knows the feeling. “Senator Arlen Specter left the Republican Party last year and became a Democrat to save his political career,” reports the New York Times. “Now at 79, he suddenly finds that the party he switched into may not provide a safe haven.”

Backed by President Obama and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Specter is expected to win against his Democratic challenger Joe Sestak, who described Specter as a “flight risk.” According to state Democratic chairman T. J. Rooney, Specter is “more true to the base.” That’s hardly news. Specter has always derived strength from the support of the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party.

Former Republican Representative Patrick Toomey, who narrowly lost to Specter in Pennsylvania’s 2004 primary election, is the likely standard bearer for the Republicans in this year’s midterm elections. He is positioned perfectly to garner support from the well-organized forces of the Tea Party, and is greatly encouraged by the recent Massachusetts election of Scott Brown. “And Pennsylvania is a lot more conservative than Massachusetts,” assures Toomey. As Dante said in his Divine Comedy, “And now, I said, you traitor bent on evil, I do not need your talk, for I shall carry true news of you, and that will bring you shame.”

By Mr. Curmudgeon

The repudiation of President Obama by Massachusetts voters was just the beginning of a mountain of bad news for hope and change. A recent Rasmussen poll finds that 60% of respondents say the next president will likely be a Republican. But the president can take comfort that he has a stalwart supporter in the person of Ellie Light. And she’s quite the letter writer. “…Today, the president is being attacked as if he were a salesman who promised us that our problems would wash off in the morning. He never made such a promise. It’s time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic wand and fix everything.”

Newspapers around the country began noticing an eerie, verbatim similarity in letters to the editor popping up around the country. “Since news of her serial letter-writing campaign surfaced in the Cleveland Plain Dealer,” reports the Los Angeles Times, “one sleuth has tracked 70 sightings of Ellie Light letters…Some think Light is actually First Lady Michelle Obama or National Security Council aide Samantha Power.” Actually, no one really knows who Ms. Light actually is, but she is most likely the invention of an Obama personality cult group like Organizing for America.

When Obama leaves office in January 2013, his presidential library’s Hope and Change wing will no doubt include letters showing the nation’s outpouring of support for the one term president. The letters may be from the same person, and identical word for word, but at least the addresses will differ. In the next wing, the Chicago Voter exhibit will pay tribute to Democratic constituents who managed to get to the polls long after their deaths.

By Mr. Curmudgeon

Scott Brown hasn’t been in Washington more than a week and Democrats are already trying to co-opt him. The Democratic Congress is now spending taxpayer dollars at such a furious pace it has to raise the debt ceiling another $1.9 trillion dollars, taking the nation’s total debt to $14.3 trillion dollars. Obama’s unsustainable spending has so alarmed Americans, Massachusetts voters put a Republican in Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat to curb the madness. In response, Congress – with Obama’s blessing – is proposing to create of a bipartisan commission designed to rein-in spending, a responsibility the Constitution mandates to Congress and not commissions.

Eric Fehrnstrom, a Brown spokesman, told POLITICO.com, “If he were present, Brown would vote yes for the bipartisan plan…” As with most Democratic plans calling for bipartisanship, this commission is designed to provide political cover for Democrats itching to raise taxes. If this proposed bipartisan body voted to raise taxes, even with all Republican members voting no, the New York Times can accurately report that a “commission made up of both Democrats and Republicans” recommended a tax hike. It’s a neat trick, and one Republicans continually fall for.

In response to the public’s outrage over his spending, the president will use his State of the Union address to unveil his plan to freeze federal spending at last years levels. Obama claims this will save taxpayers money. The Washington Post reports, “…The freeze would shave no more than $15 billion off next year’s budget – barely denting a deficit projected to exceed $1 trillion for the third year in a row …”

Brown campaigned to oppose the Democrat’s runaway spending and ObamaCare. It would be unfortunate if in the name of empty bipartisanship Brown began his tenure in the U.S. Senate by providing political cover for the very people he promised to oppose.

By Mr. Curmudgeon

With the nation becoming ever more disgusted with our dysfunctional two party system, disaffected Americans became a clenched fist of populist anger. Barack Obama and the Democrats were the first to tap into the rage, unseating a twelve-year Republican majority in Congress and electing a Democratic president who promised a “post partisan” style of governance designed to “unite, not divide” the nation.

Drunk with power and possessing the arrogance of pre-revolutionary French aristocrats, Democrats rewarded their constituents (like ACORN and the United Auto Workers) with taxpayer payoffs and unprecedented multi-trillion dollar stimulus pork. But the totalitarian health care program was the final injury that galvanized populist anger, which found expression in the form of the Tea Party, whose activists voiced their concern and anger at health care town hall meetings across the country. Tea Party activist used anti-ObamaCare anger to coordinate a stunning come-from-behind campaign victory for Republican Scott Brown in bluest of blue states.

The Brown Massachusetts victory rattled King Obama, who finally gazed out the window of his throne room to see an approaching peasant army with pitchforks and catapults. He now views his upcoming State of the Union address as a platform to make a desperate plea to the peasants for mercy and to say he will throw a few federal crumbs to targeted constituencies. According to administration mouthpieces, Obama will use his address to – what else – blame George W. Bush for the economic mess his government can’t fix. This is odd, considering Obama tapped W. to help coordinate relief efforts in earthquake-stricken Haiti. Republicans – the ever-faithful bipartisan dogs – can be counted on to help no matter how often they are kicked.

The Tea Party camp attempts to marshal populist angst in an effort to restrain government power, maximize individual freedom and return a lion’s share of the fruits of our labors to the laborer. The Obama camp, on the other hand, wants to channel populist rage away from the king and his court and focus it on bankers. Never mind that some of Obama’s biggest campaign contributors included: Goldman Sachs, $994,795; Citigroup Inc., $701,290; and Morgan Stanley, $514,881. It was this cynical misdirection of the populist mind that allowed a crooked Chicago huckster into the White House.

The challenge for the Tea Party is to calm that populist anger, focusing it instead into a crusade that appeals, as Abraham Lincoln said, to the “better angels of our nature.” Otherwise, Obama’s Chicago style populism will initiate a gladiatorial spectacle that will have us at each other’s throats.