In Support of Boehner

The vote for Speaker of the House is today, so I'm too late to have any affect on anything and am just relieving my feelings of frustration, but as my assorted social media feeds have been shouting at me to "dump the Speaker" for months, I have to say I think the anti-Boehner campaign is extremely misguided and highlights the misgivings I have about the so-called "Tea Party," even though I basically share its policy aims.

First of all, on the matter which sparked today's move against the Speaker: "CRomnibus," and the so-called "cave" to the President's illicit executive order on immigration. There was no cave. There was a fight set up, but a fight wisely deferred until it could be won. The Continuing Resolution funds most of the government for a year, but the Department of Homeland Security only through February. Which means: Boehner's going to fight on immigration policy, but he wisely waited to start the battle when the Cavalry (the new Senate) arrives. 

I have no idea what people who wanted to have that fight in December think they could have accomplished while Harry Reid still ran the Senate -- other than utterly squander the political capital gained during the mid-term elections by shutting down the government. Do you want to actually change the policy or do you just want to pontificate?

CRomnibus isn't a great bill. There's no love lost between any real Conservative and a multi-trillion dollar government spending plan under any circumstances. But in politics you work incrementally, and there were a lot of Conservative "wins." 

Such as: 

• the Ryan-Murray spending caps remain
• The EPA budget cut $60 million, and they're prevented from using the Clean Water Act against farmers' ponds and ditches. 
• Cutting the IRS budget some $365 million.
• No new obamacare funding
• Prevents Guantanamo perps from being tried as civilians in the U.S. 
• They delayed the incandescent light bulb ban. 
• 451 policies/programs blocked -- such as no abortion funding in Obamacare, no funding for ACORN, "fast & furious" explicitly banned, and more....

Blaming Boehner for Cromnibus is like blaming Pius XII for not helping Jews or calling Lincoln a racist: people want their rhetoric loud and their demonstrations showy, but pay little attention to actual actions and results. 

I often have the impression that no one understands any longer how our system works. The Speaker of the House, while he naturally has some influence over party positions, has limits on his power. He can't go much beyond what the members of his party are willing to do. Denouncing Boehner as a "RINO" strikes me as grossly unfair. He's a reliable Conservative, good at pushing his members in the right direction, and with a good sense of how far his people are willing to go. He's also (like McConnell in the Senate) a highly effective parliamentarian (which -update!- is how he forced the sequester on Obama, resulting in the ONLY actual federal deficit reduction in absolute terms in my lifetime), which is all the more needed when you have a crop of newbies who don't understand the House rules yet. 

He could be a trifle bolder, perhaps. Perhaps. What I mostly wish is that he and the GOP generally had a better communications operation to educate GOP voters and the American people on the reasoning behind what they do. I wish the absurd criticism about not fighting on immigration didn't go un-answered. And I especially wish that Tea Party figures chose their battles and their villains more wisely. I wish they lived the Catholic virtue of solidarity, understanding that when you come to office, you have to govern from where the country actually is. You don't get tabula rasa, and no matter how much you hate your predecessors' policies and consider yourself mandated to undo them, you are responsible for those very policies and responsible to the people relying on them, because you are part of the American people who put them in place. 

I don't fear for Boehner (has he been re-elected yet)? He is well-loved by most of his colleagues because he works like a dog for them in their campaigns, in and out of everyone's districts. If others want Boehner's position, they could learn from him how to serve others and not just rant at them.

Letter from the Jeff Bell Campaign

Did I mention at the start of the summer that the first political campaign I recall knowing anything about -- back when I was a kid-- was Jeff Bell's run for Senate in 1976?  He primaried and knocked-out a RINO Republican, but then lost to Bill Bradley. 

Now Bell's back, running for Senate in NJ again, and within striking distance of Corey Booker. Sharing this campaign letter both to publicize Bell and because it's so different in tone from typical campaign letters. We'll see if it works, but I find it refreshing.

Dear Friend, 
I want to wish you Happy Hispanic Heritage Month.  

But rather than dish out trivia or talking points, I want to tell you why it's important to me as a conservative candidate. Ronald Reagan once said, "Latinos are Republicans, they just don't know it yet." Maybe that's politically incorrect to repeat in 2014. But I do agree with the premise behind his assertion: if the Republican Party makes the case to them, Hispanics will vote GOP.

  **Show your support for the campaign here**

But they do have a problem now. Our party has been unwelcoming. Republican members in Congress have refused to consider a path to legalization for those who came here illegally over the years or an expanded guest worker program that is open to low-skilled workers, not just Ph.D.'s. President Reagan tried to solve this problem in 1986, but the law he signed that year left out access for immigrants who want to come here and work temporarily without becoming citizens. It's led to the crisis we have today of millions of people who came from Mexico and elsewhere and simply stayed because neither the law -- which actually makes it a misdemeanor -- nor our border security encourage people to come here the right way.  

I like Rush Limbaugh and have been interviewed by him on other topics, but I have to say that I fundamentally disagree with his assertion that those who immigrate here from Mexico are registered Democrats in waiting. Hispanics in the U.S. have the highest rate of business creation among all ethnic groups -- and more than double the national rate. Moreover, they tend to share conservatives' beliefs that life begins at conception and marriage is composed of a husband and a wife. They are as good a prospect at voting Republican as any immigrants to America from anywhere in the world.   

If elected, I'm headed to the U.S. Senate to fight for a comprehensive immigration reform plan that includes a generous, market-based guest worker program so we don't repeat the crisis that stems from 1986. I'll fight against the special interests like Big Labor to get this done. As we achieve success, I believe Hispanic voters will move toward the GOP. Immigration may rank for many of them relatively low in a poll of issue priorities, but our party's stance on it has served as a barrier for them to consider the rest of our agenda that would appeal to Hispanics.

Fixing the immigration system is the springboard to making Ronald Reagan's words start to come true. 

Even if you disagree with my analysis -- believe me, many conservatives I know do -- I want to thank you for your attention to this important issue.

And please consider making a contribution to my campaign. Your support is critical.

As ever,
Jeff Bell, 
Leonia, NJ

 I like this so much. He talks plainly, he doesn't insult anyone, he lets his ideas speak for themselves -- and he believes in talking to voters rather than about them. 

Give The President What He Needs

...to destroy himself and his Obamacare.

OMG, Republicans. When your political enemy is flailing, don't rescue him. Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. WaPo knows it, and Bill Clinton and others are stating it all but openly. There is every reason to believe that come January, millions more people will be uninsured than before the law took place and people hate it and recognize that the President knew this would happen --people losing their insurance plans is a necessary step in getting them into Obamacare-- and straight-up lied about it for years.

Sen. Landrieu has proposed a "fix" that will kill the program, as that link above explains. (Or here's an explanation from the Conservative perspective -- either way.)

For the love of all that is holy, GOP-ers, do NOT oppose the Landrieu bill and propose your own alternative as this article says you are doing. If you do, the President will go the American people and claim, "We're trying to fix it, and Republicans don't want to help you at all."

Shut up, behave in gentleman-like manner, and tell the President, "Whatever you want to do to make good on your promise people can keep their plans, we will give you, as long as it doesn't raise taxes and government doesn't subsidize insurance companies, we are with you."

The Dems passed Obamacare without a single GOP vote, let them own it fully.  For once in your paltry, self-centered little lives, focus on people and families and not on your friends at the insurance companies  -- who were all eager to belly up to the Obamacare cronyism trough. Let everyone lie in the bed they made and just defend little people.

You are not going to do anything serious about Obamacare until you retake the Senate and/or the Presidency. Focus!

 Image shamelessly pinched from American Digest

Update: Different point, but I am too lazy to do a separate post, and it's still about Obamacare. In this case, how they're trying to sell it to young people (at least in Colorado) with a revolting series of ads. So revolting that even the local Planned Parenthood assumed they were parody. Simcha Fisher with good commentary on that.

most amazing of all?  These ads are not fake. Not satire.  Not a mean-spirited dig meant to rub dirt in the wounds of real people with real needs.
Planned Parenthood of Colorado, however, assumed they were. 
They indignantly sputtered on Twitter:

Unfortunate that anti-obamacare folks are #slutshaming #women who use #birthcontrol  #GotInsurance #ThanksObamacare http://twitpic.com/dkxrep

So there we are, folks.  Things have gotten so awful that even the awful people can't tell if the other awful people are being awful on purpose in a good, compassionate, progressive awful way, or in the old-fashioned, mocking, whatevershaming awful way, because THEY'RE JUST ALL SO AWFUL.  Oh, sorry, am I awfulpersonshaming?  Am I moronshaming? Hey, give me a break.  It's been a tough year, and I'll take what I can get.
Race to the bottom, folks.  If you're lucky, you'll only be paying 300% more for your insurance when you hit the floor.

Worst case scenario? Obamacare is repealed by 2014 so the Dems have a chance to win re-election. Best case scenario? It stays and destroys our healthcare system and closes all Catholic hospitals (because what no one has focused on is there's not just the HHS mandate, there's also the massive regulatory burden on not-for-profit hospitals that is going to kill them all anyway, even if we win the right not to pay for anyone's abortion or casual sex in court).  Then a series of free clinics run by nuns will spring up in response to exactly the same kinds of needs that sparked Christians to create the very first hospitals -- and there will be a vocations boom because people will see that they are needed and want to give themselves out of love. And in 50 years, a re-birth of freedom!