We Lost

Well, the most important election of our lifetime is over.  How many times did you hear both sides use that phrase?  "The most important election of our lifetime."  Now the reality hits.  We lost.  Lots of experts, so-called experts, wannabe experts, everyday people, and conspiracy theorists are weighing in with their opinion of why we lost.  We lost because religious voters stayed home.  We lost because Latino voters didn't like the phrase "self-deportation."  We lost because women want free birth control.  We lost because unemployed welfare moms don't want to give up their Obama-phone.  We lost because of election fraud.  These are just a few of the reasons I have heard from experts of varying degrees of credibility.  I think there is a bigger reason that we lost.  I am afraid that, at least to a very large portion of our population, the truth doesn't matter.

Wednesday morning, the day after the election, a friend posted comments on Facebook about how hateful and mean so many of the comments were.  She then mentioned a Tweet from Tim Tebow on Monday.  Something to the effect of, "don't worry about the early election results tomorrow.  The Democrats will have an early lead.  Then the Republicans will get off work and vote."  She gloated about Tebow being so wrong, and in fact the opposite actually happened.  I'm not a huge Tebow fan, but I do respect him a lot, and that just didn't sound like something he would say.  So I typed "Tim Tebow election tweet" into a Google search. The very first response was about the fake Tim Tebow tweet being re-tweeted more than 17,000 times already.  It took me all of 5 seconds to find the truth and another minute to read the article to make sure it was a credible source.  I didn't want to post on my friend's Facebook timeline, thinking it might be embarrassing to her, so I sent a private message just listing the link that I found.  She responded in minutes, saying she thought it was probably a hoax, but she just likes to argue.  She didn't care about the truth, only about "winning."  She said she votes based on a couple of issues that are important to her and actually did not do ANY research into Romney's stand on these issues!  I changed the subject at that point because she admitted to having absolutely zero interest in the truth, only in arguing.

There were so many WTH!? moments on election evening.  Pennsylvania going to President Obama was one of the big ones.  When he says he plans to bankrupt the state's largest industry, coal, did they not believe him?  Or did they just not care to learn his position?  It's not like it's a secret, if you have enough interest in the truth to look.





But at least he respects the people of Pennsylvania and their beliefs, right?  Well, not exactly.  He says they "bitterly cling to their guns and their religion," specifically speaking about residents of Pennsylvania.


Virginia not only depends on the coal industry, but the military as well.  In the last presidential debate, the president says that the mandatory cuts to the military that would happen on the first of the year came from Congress' suggestion, not from him.  And that if he has his way they will never happen anyway.  Bob Woodward says that Obama was "mistaken."  In interviews for his book, The Price of Politics, the White House Office of Management Director and the Legislative Affairs Director both told Woodward that the idea for sequestration came from the White House and was presented to Senate Majority Leader Reid before being suggested to Congress.  So Woodward gives the president the benefit of the doubt, he was just  mistaken about where the idea originated.  The very next day, the president touts his idea of sequestration to produce a cut in the deficit in an off the record interview with the Des Moines Register.  No talk of a deal to prevent the mandatory cuts to military or Medicare payments to doctors, as he claimed the prior evening.  He lied period.  In spite of his promise to cut their number one industry, coal; and boasting about cuts coming to their number two economic engine, the military, Virginia voted for Obama.  Not only that, the Des Moines Register called the president on his lies and demanded that the off the record interview be made public.  Based on his interview and on the fact that he lied either during the debate or in their interview, the Register endorsed the Republican candidate for the first time in 40 years.  Iowa voted for Obama.

Ohio was crucial for a Romney win.  Obama hit Romney hard about his stand on the bailout of GM and Chrysler.  He said that Romney wanted the two automakers to go out of business.  He said that Romney was in favor of letting the automakers go bankrupt and lose all their jobs in Michigan and Ohio.  These claims led to a pretty heated exchange in the debates.  Finally ending with the president saying "let the people read it for themselves."  And Romney saying "yes, please do."  The editorial is out there and easy to find.  In it Romney does advocate a managed bankruptcy to allow the companies to restructure and provide government guarantees for loans by private lenders.  Did it matter to voters or even to the president that the truth was on Romney's side?  Apparently not.  The day after the debate, fact checkers - even those normally firmly backing the president, said the president was wrong in his debate claims.  But the president was in Dayton, OH repeating his false claims.  And in spite of the Detroit Free Press' endorsement of Romney, both Michigan and Ohio voted for Obama.

The biggest and probably most important lie of all involves the death of Ambassador Stevens, former Navy Seals and CIA contractors, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, and State Dept. Information Officer Sean Smith in Benghazi.  This incident, our president's response to it and its aftermath defines who we are as a country.  Do we still have the policy of "no man left behind?"  Initial evidence says not any more.  Hopefully Congress, the press, and the American public are still interested enough to push for the truth about this attack and our White House's response to it.

As Fox Mulder used to say on The X-Files, "the truth is out there."  It's truly not hard to find either.  It matters.  The question is, do we care anymore?  If not, we really have lost.  And we are lost as well.

By the way, did you know Iran fired on a U.S. drone over international waters on the Friday before the election?  Thought not.  It's true.  It's out there, if you are interested in looking.

Pro Choice

Ever notice that the only choice the progressives/liberals/Democrats are actually in favor of, is the woman's choice whether or not to let her baby live long enough to be born?  It is their body after all.  I plan to write in the next few days about the choices being taken away from us.  Yes, I know it has been nine months since my last post.  I've been busy, ok?  Actually, I think I fell victim to the Bill Belichick strategy being employed by our government.  When every day brings a new assault on our Constitution and our rights as individuals, just as the St. Louis Rams learned in the Super Bowl, eventually the officials (conservative Americans in this case) get overwhelmed.  Like I wrote about before, I need to square my shoulders and get back in the game.   So I am going to focus for a few posts on the choices we are losing.


First of all, unless you have been living in a cave, you know that this is an election year.  From the first few days of Obama's Constitutional assault, excuse me, administration, Republicans have sworn that they would nominate a true conservative.  They would not allow the media to force another Obama-lite candidate like John McCain on the party.  We would be given a true choice.  The 2008 primaries exposed Mitt Romney as only a couple of degrees more conservative than Barack Hussein Obama.  The Tea Party Revolution of 2010 gave us hope that the Republican Party would offer choice, a real alternative to the president.  Beginning almost immediately after the 2010 Republican landslide fueled by the Tea Party, the media began pushing Romney as the only electable Republican.  All other candidates were radical, too far right.  They would never win the independent vote.  


So even with polls showing that the majority of Americans describe themselves as conservative, only Romney was viewed by the media as mainstream enough to challenge the president in 2012.  Early straw polls in Iowa showed a true conservative, Michelle Bachmann having the most support in the Republican primary.  The media pulls out its favorite attack on conservatives - she's stupid.  In one speech, she mentioned Davenport, Iowa as the hometown of the American icon and symbol of self-reliance, John Wayne.  What an idiot!  John Wayne was not born in Davenport.  His family moved from Davenport shortly before his birth.  How embarrassing!   You would've thought this moron didn't even know how many states are in the United States.  Or how to pronounce corpsman.  She may even speak about asthmatics needing a breathalyzer!  How could such an intellectual lightweight match up against President Obama, who is quite possibly the most intelligent community organizer to ever walk the earth?  Only Romney is intelligent enough to have a chance!  After all, he is from Massachusetts and isn't his hair perfect?  


Republicans allowed themselves to be scared away from a truly principled conservative who actually has a voting record that supports her claims to small government Constitutional beliefs.  Next to take the lead in the pre-Iowa polls was Texas governor, Rick Perry.  Perry has a very strong record as governor of Texas.  He has even published a book detailing government reforms he would favor to return Washington D.C. to it's Constitutionally mandated size, giving more power to the states, and thus returning choice to citizens.  But the media was quick to point out that Perry signed into law a Texas bill allowing children whose parents are in the United States illegally to go to college in Texas, paying in-state tuition.  This was a huge problem for Tea Party conservatives.  In spite of Perry's defense that the bill received only two dissenting votes in the Texas House and Senate, and would be easily overridden if he had vetoed it.  He chose to accept the loss and move on, and even explained his signature that way at the time he signed the bill into law.  But the media explained to the ignorant Tea Party conservatives that Perry would soon have the country overrun and speaking Spanish only on college campuses.  Better to choose Mitt Romney, the true conservative who supports the Dream Act which is basically a national version of the Texas law.  Oh, and it would provide a fast track to full citizenship for immigrants who had chosen to ignore the law up to this point.  Well, at least if they hadn't committed any felonies while they were in the country.  Well, not all felonies, just not any violence-related felonies.  Yeah, that Romney would be a much better choice than Rick Perry.  And the whole stupid thing again.  Perry has a Texas accent, Romney's Massachusetts accent is so much more intelligent.  I mean just compare the economy of Romney's Massachusetts to Perry's Texas.  No.  Better not do that!  Just trust the media.  Perry's stupid and will open the borders to basically invite everyone to cross the Rio Grande anytime they choose.  So shortly after the Iowa caucus, Bachmann's out, followed a short time later by Perry.  


Next up for the Tea Party, successful businessman, Herman Cain.  Once he was able to pull the microphone away from Romney and Perry, he actually came away from the debates with a lot of support, especially for his 9-9-9 plan for tax reform.  Cain presented a huge problem for the liberal media.  Their fallback attack on conservatives, their lack of intelligence, might be seen as racist.  Cain is black, just like Obama!  How can the media claim the only reason Republicans oppose the president's socialist agenda is because they're hood-wearing, cross-burning racists, if they nominate a black man for president?  All right, Cain has no government experience.  He actually ran successful businesses and can not only discuss economic theory, but point to his own experience and success.  WITH NO GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE!!  That's not even possible in Obama's world.  That would overwhelm President Obama's tenure in the Illinois senate and in the U.S. Senate where he was noted for zero legislation and numerous "present" votes.  So the media was unable to take the intelligence, race, and experience roads to attacking Cain.  What to do?  What to do?  Conservatives stand on family values.  Let's find something in Cain's past personal life.  Soon there is a parade of women claiming either affairs or harassment.   Cain denied the charges, offered to take a lie detector test, challenged his accusers to take the same lie detector tests (they all declined).  Eventually Cain decided the strain on his family was too much and "suspended" his candidacy.  Coincidentally, all his accusers and even more mysteriously, their high dollar legal representation quickly and completely disappeared.   As an added bonus for the liberal media, they were able to once again accuse the Republicans and especially the Tea Party of racism.  How could they drop their support for Cain following a few unsubstantiated accusations?  By white women!  That's why.  Brings back all the old stereotypes of the black man that just can't control his animal urges around white women!  They were able to disguise their racism for a little while, but eventually it rose to the surface.  Better put your support behind Mitt Romney.  He's white.  If it came down to a choice between two black men, most Republicans and Tea Party members would just stay home, guaranteeing four more years of Obama.  Or at least that's what the media would have us believe.


Next in line for the conservatives?  Well, they are desperate.  True conservative candidates, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain are gone.  Good lord, we don't want Romney!  Who is left?  Newt Gingrich!!!  Newt's smart.  He debates very well.  Even the liberal media will admit that Newt would more than hold his own against President Obama in any debate.  And without a teleprompter.  Another plus for Gingrich?  He knows the media's game and will call them out on it.   In an intellectual fight, Newt is definitely the candidate to take on the media and the president.  In debates, he turned the attack to the president and also to the media.  To the conservatives accustomed to the "above the mudslinging" style of George Bush and George W. Bush and the "reach across the aisle" style of John McCain, this aggressive style was very attractive.  Newt's only problem?  Anyone who took a close look at his record or his words would quickly realize that he is definitely not "small government."  His  favorite presidents or role models for a Gingrich presidency?  Not George Washington.   Not Abraham Lincoln.  Not Dwight Eisenhower.  Not Ronald Reagan.  Not even either of the Bushes.  Newt's choice?  How about Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, or Franklin D. Roosevelt!  You can't spell big government progressive without Wilson, Teddy, or FDR.  Then there's his Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae connections.  And his support of cap and trade legislation.  He only appeared in the commercial sitting on a couch and agreeing with that Tea Party favorite, Nancy Pelosi.  And finally Newt's worst enemy is Newt.    He debates well and takes the fight to the media well because he is quick thinking.  Unfortunately this means that he has a creative memory, such as claiming in one interview that he supported Goldwater, showing his true conservative roots.  Small problem, he actually supported the progressive Republican Nelson Rockefeller.  But that was long enough in the past no one could really claim otherwise, right?  Well, it would be tough to prove, except for the fact that Gingrich was actually precinct captain for Rockefeller!  Conservatives who want a choice did their own homework and learned the facts about Gingrich and, so far at least, seem to have chosen to eliminate Gingrich.  If you have any doubts about Newt's real principles, click on the links in this paragraph for videos of Gingrich stating his beliefs.  


That leaves Republicans and real conservatives a choice.  The electable, almost liberal Mitt Romney (probably more big government liberal in his policies than Democratic icon, John F. Kennedy) and Ron Paul.  Paul could be dangerous for for the liberals if the election and the presidency were all about economics and domestic policy.  Ron Paul is the candidate of choice when it comes to shrinking the government and actually enforcing the United States Constitution.  Unfortunately, he is a naive extremely dangerous candidate when it comes to foreign policy.  Although he has brought Federal Reserve policies into the public debate and actually seems to have stoked a libertarian revival among young people, he is unelectable.  Good thing for the future of the country there is one more candidate.  Rick Santorum.  The former senator from Pennsylvania has a couple of questionable actions on record - namely his support  of earmarks for his state when he served in the senate.  Overall he is head and shoulders over Romney when you compare their records.  Problem is the media is trying to convince the Republican voters that only Romney is electable.  He has too much support.  The race is over, right?  Except that Republican voters took responsibility and informed themselves without listening to the media.  Iowa voters surprised everyone and chose Santorum.  New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida did what was expected and chose Romney.  So the race is over, with only four of the fifty states (or is it 57? or 59, Mr. President?) actually voting.  Or at least that's what the media is trying to convince us.  Then last weekend, Santorum swept Missouri, Minnesota, and surprisingly, Colorado.  The media quickly starts the spin that very few delegates were actually committed in those three races and Missouri's is not even a binding caucus.  So yesterday when Romney won Maine, well, now it's all over again.  Romney just proved that he is the only one who can beat Obama.  


Don't listen to the media again.  Don't let them take away our choice.  Again.