hey that's true

you're always circling the bowl

what were  we thinking

has an avatar that is counting zerg

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Restore the People's Beer to teh People's Party, Comrade WFS!!!

shaddap...I'm talking about FREE BEER

after Joe Horn got acquitted for shooting an unarmed burglar of somebody else's house with a shotgun 3 times AFTER calling 911, I wouldn't turn right on red in Texas o.O

was a golddigger

yes I was responsible for the Apollo program!!

read that post and went out to make a pirate hat out of newspaper

From 1993 to 2005 Republicans nourished the Reagan Coalition with the argument that the Democrats were fundamentally skewed on defense, spending, the judiciary, pro-life, ecological extremism, taxes, regulation and foriegn policy--and that giving Democrats control of any of the three elected powercenters in Washington delayed the day of glorious Conservative policymaking.  From 1993-2005 the Republicans blamed the troubles of the country to Democrat control of the Presidency or the House or the Senate.

2004 was the last year that Republicans ran as a team, around a positive agenda, on the idea that a Republican President and House and Senate were going to operate as a team.  It was also the last year Republicans could consider a big win.

Almost immediately in 2005 it became clear that the Republican Party, with the magic trifecta of President, House and Senate, was not going to deliver on its promises.   If a Republican felt like screwing the mandate, like McCain with his Gang of 13, then he went and did it, and nothing was done about it.  There would be no reform of the judiciary.  There would be no massive tax relief--the Bush tax cuts were still portrayed, wrongly, as some sort of expense by the government that must expire.  The Republicans showered pork to special interests, and Bush revived the amnesty program that everybody thought was dropped by popular demand in March 2004.  It led to a civil war within the party, led by McCain, at his most vile and destructive.  They also assaulted the First Amendment protection of political speech. 

By 2006 the bulk of Republicans had no defense of their rule except "we're the lesser evil", a mantra which continues to this day.  In 2006 the House and Senate went back to the Democrats, and in 2008 stayed Democrat, and McCain, the great divider and whore, mounted to the pinnacle of Republican power.  Before that, Bush collapsed and gave corporations the keys to the Federal Reserve, literally pledging unlimited responsibility for the debts of Wall Street.

Today, outcast, the Republican Party is reduced to Mad Men without the balls.   There is constant "marketing" which is posturing wtih a finger in the air to gauge the wind-- and no "salesmanship" which is the art of persuading people to change their minds.  There are damn few salesmen in the GOP and too many marketers.   As an organization, it has no soul.  It has no concern with doing the right thing, or figuring the best it can do.  It is about doing the easiest thing.  Coupled with that-- and I have wasted hours and hours on "rightwing" sites, arguing with common folks and bloggers-- is a sneering rage at the "purists" of the Party.  Anybody who wants what Reagan delivered is a "purist", their words, too "pure" to go along with the crowd and celebrate moderate liberals that the Republican machine calculates will be least offensive to the middle.  Selling the value of the Bill of Rights, and of capitalism, and any point of conservative ideology, is a hostile act to these "center-right" Republicans.  Persuasion is something for the fringe to do; after they go do that, the Republican Party may hopon the bandwagon.

When I was a boy I heard a old joke by Abe Lincoln.  "If you call a lamb's tail a leg, how many legs does it have? Four. Calling a tail, a leg, doesn't make it one."  I don't hear that one anymore.  It would upset the Republican "intellectuals" who sole contribution is offering bold new definitions to old words to try and suck up some loyalty. I'm sure you've seen the articles, they are legion, by guys like David Frum and David ap Hugh and too many others.   Race politics is really conservative.  Supporting legal abortion is really conservative.  Amnesty for illegal aliens is really conservative.  Limiting, not opposing, government takeover of healthcare is the true conservative position.  They're "modern conservatives" they're "progressive conservatives".  As some yokel put it, "I don't want to see conservatism stuck on being a kneejerk anti-liberal philosophy".  Be moderate liberal.  Be Marxist, if you like.  But you're not conservative.

And boy do they hate "socons". HATE us.  'Stupid social conservatives are an anchor on the neck of the party!  Bout time they understood their role.  They've got nowhere else to go anyhow, so it's time for them to be "mature" and vote the lesser evil that will slow the decline, rather that dream pipe dreams of imposing their religion on everybody. Abortion is legal, and that's that.  The Court is going to legalize gay marriage, and that's that.  Demanding a vote on those things is bigotry, and its controversial, and it will cost the Party the new recruits down the middle that are its future.'

And so here is the Grand Old Party, out of power, spinning its lies, with a dream of total political power WITHOUT somehow owing anybody any committment to a policy agenda.  Standing for everything to everybody.  Looking, remarkably, exactly like Clinton's DLC 1992:  Abortion is regrettable but necessary; spending is useful; the military has to shrink; racial Balkanization is a wonderful proof of diversity; our foriegn policy has to be more cooperative and less assertive; taxes have to go up; business has to be more socially responsible.   Websites like HotAir.com now declare that the big mistake the GOP made was not getting behind teh notion of federal control of health care, and we have to preserve it as an option.  I am banned at HotAir.com, because they censor the word "revolt" when discussing Americna politics.  They celebrate organized resistance to tyranny all over the world, but not in the USA, because process matters more than the "Jeffersonian fantasy" of guaranteed rights or else.  If you think the Constitution is being trampled, vote Republican.  Though they promise nothing about repeal.

And at the end of the day, they are so clever, so diabolically Machiavellian, they have lost the Closer.  The Closer is the guy in the bar who sees a Republican ad on TV, and applauds.  It's the guy who bangs on doors for free to sell a Republican candidate.  It's the gal who can't hang out with her sisters because they are Democrat and she won't let them forget it.  The Closer is the average American who will sell the Republican Party to other average Americans, simply because he thought it good and a force for making America better.  The modern Republican Party hates that selfrighteous son of a bitch, and says so.  Newsweek did a poll recommending they spit on him.

Here's how it works guys

index your current budget at 100

you want 103

you demand 110, be argued down to 103

next budget cycle you demand 110, be argued to hold 103.  You're just arguing to argue but make it good

next budget cycle you demand 110, argue for 105 as bare minimum to hold inflation

next budget cycle is election year, holler like hell for 110 and take whatever

next budget cycle likely has change of leadership, go to them and say " we told you 5 years ago we needed 110, never got it, DAMMIT when is our department gonna be fully funded???!!!"

If the Democrat candidate is not Obama in 2012, the Democrats have it.

The Republican Party is dead set on running AGAINST Obama.  They want no part of a commitment to a positive agenda.  They are the anti-Obama party.  If you hate Obama, then vote Republican!  don't ask what that means.

But as a few Congressional races showed this past week, if the Democrat says "yeah I don't like the socialist agenda but I'm not one of those Republican yahoos" then they can beat a Republican.

If the Democrats put up a presidential candidate against Obama then he can kick GOP butt.  Just like McCain was totally set to run against Hillary Clinton but never figured how to beat a Democrat who agreed with McCain that "Business as usual" was lousy. 

And even if it is Obama and the GOP wins in 2012 in 2016 NotObama will win it for the Democrats.
If the Democrats can find enough lefties who like Obama are willing to be one-term presidents for the sake of the Revolution, the Democrats can lock it in for a generation.

if 58% of America is below the poverty line at least once in their lives and yet only at most 17% are estimated to be at the poverty line at any time it sounds like we have some "social mobility" going on.

furthermore of an estimated 308 million people, 12 to 20 million are here illegally.

until recently I qualified for food stamps and utility assistance.  Poverty never had it so good.

Also the stats over here seem to show that imprisonment is a good cure for high crime rates.  When we passed 3 strikes we had a drop in violent felonies.