The Rabid Conservative

Well, I was trying to be nice, but I guess no good deed goes unpunished, particularly at IMAO.  So, having started the Award-Me-and-I’ll-Award-You-Back saga, Harvey at IMAO has presented this nifty little ribbon to TRC.

Since my other hand is rubbing my forehead wondering just what phenomenon I’ve started, here is the sound of one hand clapping… * – - – *

(although this has been good for business…)

This past week, a would-be stirring debate between a Harvard law student and Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) ensued when the student asked one question. Frank then responded with another question and for the first part of the exchange, was nothing more than two people asking questions without the other hearing and/or listening to what the other had to say.

Harvard Law Student: How much responsibility, if any, do you have for the financial crisis?

Barney Frank: What do you think I should have done?

Harvard Law Student: I’m waiting for you to answer my question, how much responsibility, if any, do you have for the financial crisis?

Barney Frank: And I’m waiting for you to answer my question, what do you think I should have done?

Frank then proceeded to change the student’s question around into a straw-man by saying “happened on my watch” rather than “[personally] taking responsibility”.  Frank refused to accept (and has from the start) any responsibility for the entire Fannie/Freddie mess.  Frank made statements in September 2003 saying there were no financial problems with Fannie/Freddie.  He said in July 2008 that it “wasn’t a good investment, but it would be solid going forward”.

Out of the archives is a favorite clip of mine, when Frank appeared on Bill O’Reilly, tap dancing around the very words he said back in July 2008.

But even during the second clip, Frank and O’Reilly (mostly Frank here) weren’t listening to each other.   Instead, both were firing at one another (with O’Reilly more in control here than the twitching Barney Frank who was getting garrotted by his own words.

So what do we learn today:

1) In this day and age, we stand to learn more by listening rather than shouting and yelling in hopes we’ll win arguments by blasting and/or shocking the other side into submission.  Barney Frank shows us that if you want your opponent to shut up, just keep interrupting him and not let him get a word in edgewise.

2) Screaming and yelling at your opponent, even if justified, doesn’t do any good to convince him of his mistakes, but rather, raises the spin factor and puts him so far on the defensive that he feels justified in his mistake, even if he sees it as a mistake.

The grassroots way to crush the liberal discourse is to cite facts and figures, stay logical and calm, and let the liberal hang himself with his own ignorance.  Liberals live in a world of delusion, forsaking reality for self-serving idealism.  If we, as conservatives, fall into that trap, our message won’t get heard by those who haven’t yet made up their mind.

Now that’s how it’s done.

Last night, a group of rag-tag Somali pirates siezed a ship with 20 US crew on board.  These pirates, thinking they would have a nice little ransom, not to mentioned snagging some American blood for which Al Qaida would pay hansomely, in order to exploit.

Real Americans don’t just sit back on their duff and get all docile.  They start planning and working up ways of getting out of the bad situations that they’re in.  And they did just that, taking their ship back, just hours after the pirates siezed control.

As of this post, the pirates evidently still have the ship’s captain hostage in a lifeboat, so it’s not completely over.  But I’m glad to see action still overrides rhetoric, even nowadays.

The White House just sat and “monitored the situation”.

I commented recently about the stem-cell debate and got to thinking about something last night that actually would help everyone involved (something that we’re supposed to do in politics, rather than widening the chasm).

What if Obama stepped in and supported both Adult Stem Cell research with the same emphasis as Embryonic Stem Cell research, saying something like this:

I believe our answers to problems like Parkinson’s, lie in stem cell research and I’m backing both, adult and embryonic with equal emphasis.  If either one emerges with the answer to the problem, which is more important, that it is embryonic/adult that the cure came from or that the disease was cured and we have improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people?

You see, here’s the thing:  If Obama made such a statement, he could hold on to his convictions about embryonic stem cell research, embrace adult stem cell research with the same strength, and then claim victory when the cure to Parkinson’s emerges.   That would be huge!

Here’s hope and change right before our very eyes, yet, liberals continue to ignore it.  But look at the shock of Oprah Winfrey and the intent of Michael J. Fox in this video clip:

What is so important about embryonic stem cell research that makes it want liberals to avoid the promising amount of research in adult stem-cell research to keep ESCR alive?

Well, did you catch the news on Friday last?  Probably not if you were just getting ready to head out for the weekend, but I give you reference to this little gem that you should see.

In any case, many of the major news sources didn’t bother to pay attention to this.  Turns out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-owned mortgage giants that own about 40% of the housing market announced Friday that they would be paying out $210M in corporate bonuses out of the $200B in bailout funds from the Treasury Department

So, where is the outrage, Mr. (or Mrs.) Barney Frank?  Why aren’t you dragging the executives before your little House Court of Horrors to make them answer for the disbursement of these bonuses the same way you dragged the CEO of AIG through the mud?  Where’s the anger, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, that motivates you to impose a 90% punitive reclamation tax on them, like you did with AIG?

Well, to sum things up for you, I crafted this little table to illustrate the problem.

The point here is two-fold.

First, when did the media release this little bit?  At the end of the day, when the lowest number of potential people would actually be paying attention.   And since the media is in the tank for the Democrat machine, we can’t have the press going out and making a big noise about the Fannie/Freddie shenanigans.  However, by releasing the story on Friday, they reduce the damage control at the same time giving them the excuse to say they actually released the story.  What drivel.

Second, as illustrated above, raising cane about Fannie/Freddies use of bailout funds to pay off corporate executive bonuses would point the winds of outrage back at the Banking Queen him/her self.  Barney Frank has been toting the banner of support for Fannie and Freddie, even lying before Congress about how solvent they were in 2003-2005, causing people to invest money into the market, only to watch it vanish when we find out that Fannie and Freddie were cooking the books and going downhill fast.

We can see here plainly that the Democrats are hard at work, politicizing the economic crisis (remember Rahm’s statement about not letting a good crisis going to waste?)  meanwhile the media is running their screen play to keep the heat off of Barney.

Prime Minister, you cannot carry on, squeezing the productive bit of the economy to fund an unprecedented engorgement of the unproductive bit.  You cannot spend your way out of recession nor can you borrow your way out of debt. – Daniel Hannan before the European Parliament, scolding PM Gordon Brown over his spending.

Most of the readers of The Rabid Conservative are right here in the good ol’ USA, so y’all may not be totally aware of what is being said in Europe or anywhere else.  But amidst the overly socialistic nature of the European Union, strangely being replicated here in the US, we see one who is actually a real live conservative.

Daniel Hannan a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the South East of England and is one of the most exciting voices to speak out against the insane spending of world leaders like PM Gordon Brown and our own ObamAd, Inc. 

Last week, Mr. Hannan had some words for Mr. Brown on the floor of the EU Parliament.  In the following video, Hannan remarks struck nerves and ended up going viral and becoming the most viewed video in England, a day after it was released to the internet.

I guess the thing that is most notable here is that Mr. Hannan, while a new voice on the scene with a conservative message, ended up grabbing the media’s attention.  Hannan has been on most every major talk and news show in the US as a champion for reduced government spending.  We often which our media would air these kinds of comments from our more conservative politicians since it tells the other side of the more accepted liberal message. 

Mr. Hannan’s Blog is definitely worth the read and gives a unique perspective of politics from an external view.  Since our own media can’t be trusted with getting the story right, and even our internal reporters sometimes make it very difficult for us to put conservatism in a global perspective, folks like Daniel Hannan are worth reading and understanding.

Hannan’s my new hero.  He’s not much more than a year older than I am, but seems to have a good way of saying what needs to be said to Mr. Brown.  I just wish we would have a few people in our political scene who would be less political and more convicted.  Until then, preach it, Brother Hannan!

Well, this week, I want to award the Rabid Seal to the folks over at IMAO.  In a lot of ways, IMAO inspired what I do here at The Rabid Conservative.  Of course, they have more sponsors and contributors than I do, but the internet is a big enough place and we just don’t have enough rabid, right-wing blogs out there.

IMAO, or In My Arrogant Opinion is at times, rough and a little raw, but the one thing I appreciate is that they don’t ever debase themselves to what liberals do for entertainment, namely resort to stuff that I wouldn’t want my kids to see.  IMAO’s posts are funny and insightful and they mix it up in a way that keeps it fresh and interesting.

IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion)

Congrats guys (and girls – never know these days) – keep up the great work.

Until next time, stay Rabid.

In a previous entry, I cited a broken campaign promise of how Obama said that no family making more than $250k and no individual making more than $200k would see any tax increase.

Normally, when a politician says no to tax increases, it implicitly refers to income tax.  But Obama said, “any of your taxes”.  However, he jacked up the tax on tobacco nearly 62¢ per pack of cigarettes.  Given that far more people on the low end of the salary scale tend to smoke, that means a tax increase on those making less than $200k.

Here’s a news article, if you want to go deeper on the topic.

Now, it’s generally a foregone that politicians will tell you whatever you want to hear to urge you towards pulling the lever for them.  We’re not supposed to trust what they say, pretty much Ronald Reagan made this statement:

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.  – Ronald Reagan

Now, for my next prediction, and one that is not unique, since it’s been stated before as pie-in-the-sky cite this campaign promise:

Obama: If elected president, 95% of Americans will see a tax cut.

Reporter: When will Americans see that tax cut, Mr. President?

Obama: By April 1. (see article)

April fool.

First off, there’s no way Americans will see a tax cut in the absolute of terms, which is what Americans are thinking.  Next year, the Bush tax cuts will disappear.  For those of us who enjoy that wonderful tax reduction for having kids, that goes away.  For me, I have three wonderful kids, and the government reduces my tax by $3k because of that tax credit.  With the abolition of the Bush tax cuts, those reductions get rolled back and I’m stuck paying a minimum of $3k more per year on taxes.  And then Obama says, we’ll give you a $500 tax cut.  Yippie.  That’s a net increase of $2500 in taxes.

When he made the statements to Joe the Plumber about how his plan was to help the middle class, he was clueless about how much tax the middle class actually pays.  But yet, it’s all good rhetoric when appealing to the masses.  But it’s all an illusion.

After it’s all said and done, Obama’s tax agenda makes April Fools out of all of us, and particularly those who make larger amounts of money – those that create businesses and employ those of us not lucky enough to make $250k per year.

And we didn’t think ObamAd, Inc. had a plan for that $1.75T budget shortfall.

April fool.

Well, it happened again. This time, Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius, ObamAd, Inc’s latest pick for HHS Secretary has been found with about $7,000 in tax errors, as she prepares herself for the job that Tom “Puff” Daschle couldn’t take.

It would seem standard practice that a politician might work to have his/her house in order before taking the jobs, however, there are two things that come to mind:

1) What makes these people like Geithner, Sebelius, and company so darned important that we have to forgive and forget?  As you recall, they tried that mess with Daschle and Richardson, but both of those guys must have disagreed – since they bowed themselves out.

2) Why do these people take the steps now to check to make sure they are paid up on their taxes?  Oh, it’s because every appointee so far has had some sort of crooked dealing and with the Cabinet under the microscope, looking for tax cheats, now they come clean.  But Sebelius is a state governor: Shouldn’t she have been doing this all along or did it only become important when she knew she had to make sure she was clean.

Just another day at the offices of ObamAd, Inc.*

*ObamAd, Inc. – Obama Administration, Incorporated – since they are in the business of taking over companies like AIG and GM and firing CEO’s at will…