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LANCE THOMPSON

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ROSE PEDENKO

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PAULINE BOREN

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THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW

Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees

But to many Mexican-American students at Live Oak, this was a big deal. They say they were offended by the five boys and others for wearing American colors on a Mexican holiday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36981179?GT1=43001

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Entries in GOP (2)

Wednesday
Nov122008

Nothing in Moderation

by Lance Thompson

In the wake of the presidential election, some Republicans are recommending that the party should soften its views, back away from hard-line conservatism, and blur the differences between us and the Democrats. These people are called moderates, and the prescription they offer is deadly.

The Democrats did not win with a moderate candidate. Barack Obama was the nation’s most liberal Senator until he became the nation’s most liberal president. John McCain, on the other hand, was a moderate Republican, with a record of reaching across the aisle and favoring Democrat views on issues such as immigration, global warming, and tax cuts. This moderate candidate was clobbered by his immoderate opponent.

In response to the election, moderates will say that we must follow the trend, that Republicans should embrace the issues the Democrats won on. They encourage us to abandon conservative principles, evolve with the times, and adopt positions more in line with the Democrats, who scored many victories.

But we can never out-Democrat the Democrats. The closer the GOP gets to Democratic principles, the less reason there is for Republicans to exist. Why would a Democrat vote for a watered-down version of his own party? We will not only fail to woo Democrats with a slightly less-liberal version of their own platform, we will also alienate the ideological conservative core of our own party.

If liberals are right, and most of the nation subscribes to their principles of peace at any cost, of punishing success with high taxes and redistribution of income, of turning America into a nanny state where all people are dependent on the government for their needs, of opening our borders and legitimizing illegal aliens, of crippling industry as a sacrifice to the false faith of global warming, then conservatives are wrong and should retire from politics.

But if conservatives are right that freedom must be defended at all costs, that success is the well-earned reward of individual initiative, that government should be small and unobtrusive, that our borders must be secure and that immigrants must follow our laws, that global warming is a chimera whose remedies will cripple our economy, then why should we moderate our views at all?

If conservatives are right, what value is there in diluting our just cause? Would you trust a business partner who is moderately honest? Would you place your life in the hands of a moderately skillful surgeon? Would you be happy in a marriage to a moderately faithful spouse? Then what value is there in a moderately conservative candidate? To whatever extent he departs from conservative principles, he is to the same extent departing from the proper course.

Moderate Republicans have already diluted tough immigration laws, voted for the financial bailout bill, and blamed the failure of the incompetent McCain campaign on Sarah Palin--the most promising new conservative in a quarter of a century. How much more damage can they do to conservative principles if their views shape the future of the GOP?

Moderate candidates do not prevail. Voters don’t rally to the banners of moderate candidates. Moderate candidates are compromised in their principles by definition.

Moderate voters are equally uninspiring. These are the ones who aren’t interested in the campaign during the primaries, don’t focus on the issues until the last few weeks or even days of the campaign, and haven’t made up their minds until the last minute. Moderate voters don’t knock on doors, work the phone, send out e-mails and plant yard signs. Moderate voters do not contribute to campaigns or financially support candidates. Moderate voters are the casual observers at the fringe of the fight, with little invested in either outcome.

The reclamation of the GOP will not be accomplished by moderate candidates or constituents. The beacon for Republicans is not straddling a fence or sitting in the middle of the road. Our destination is defined by strong, unyielding conservative principles. There is no need to qualify our creed with labels such as "compassionate conservatism" or "new conservatism."

Much effort will be required to rebuild the Republican Party. That effort will only be rewarded if we start with a solid foundation. We must not build the future of our party on the shifting sands of moderation, but rather on the solid bedrock of conservative principle.

 

----- Original Message ----- 

Wednesday
Oct152008

The Party of Weenies Deserves to Be Roasted

By Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

The party of Ronald Reagan is looking more and more like those persons who stand idly by and watch strangers get mugged. Except the “mugees” are members of their own party.

We would be putting it mildly if we said we’re sick and tired of hearing so-called conservatives (are you listening, John McCain?) tossing about docile rhetoric at his opponents the way nymphs sprinkle flower petals on a placid pond. We hoped McCain would throw down the gauntlet, swing away at Obama and show no mercy. As a military man, he knows well the country we love is at stake, and this is no time to worry about hurt feelings. The anger “out there” is palpable and he needs to address it today.

We’ve heard horrendous statements from liberals, such as when they compared George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler – and they got away with it. We never heard a word from our party renouncing this extremism.

We are appalled by film footage from New York City of Americans for Obama actually booing, shouting down and flipping off Americans for McCain.

It’s clear and beyond doubt that the liberal media have taken over this country, and moderate-to-conservative Republicans have only themselves to blame. They haven’t stepped up confidently to the plate and swung with all their might at every pitch with a home run in mind. Rather, they just bunt and hope to get to first base. That’s not good enough if they want to score enough runs to win the crucial series, especially if the opposing infielders are allowed to step over the foul line and are never called on it.

What is wrong with the Republican Party? There is no grit and anger, no snap and snarl. We are literally in the fight of our lives but the party is holding back, waiting for that “perfect pitch.”

Where were all the wealthy Republicans the last 50 years when Liberals purchased controlling interest in media concerns, such as television networks, major metropolitan dailies, movie studios, etc.? Liberals have steamrolled their insidious propaganda over the American psyche.

All we can do is preach day in and day out to the choir in the church of Republicanism, on a few radio stations and online journals. That forum is not now, nor will it ever be enough to turn back the tide because this tsunami of liberalism has all but washed away the few strong conservative voices. And those voices could be squished like bugs by a Democrat majority when the so-called Fairness Doctrine sails through congress after the election.

We have been hammering, yammering and all but screaming about the squeaky-wheel gets greased mentality of the left for the last two years. But have our elected officials, party leaders, and their consultants, really listened to their constituents? NO.

The Republican candidate has offered us little in the way of unique or substantive recommendations and assurances for us to stand behind him wholeheartedly and with complete confidence. His slogan, “Country First,” is an excellent choice to describe his patriotism, but it also serves as a contradiction of his intentions. He straightforwardly ignored supporters’ polls and pundits with a hand on the conservative pulse, all of whom overwhelmingly favored Mitt Romney as his logical running mate.

With all due respect to Mrs. Palin (who we admire tremendously), no one can convince us that many Republicans in congress were not aware of the impending credit meltdown. On the contrary, it was a bomb waiting to explode, and they knew it. Who, then, was better equipped than Romney, with his financial genius (and as a Washington outsider), to stand up for our side? We, and the majority of our co-conservatives, practically pleaded with the nominee to bring Mitt onto his team, but John McCain allowed his maverick ego to get in the way of “Country First.”

Our anger and fear doesn’t begin or end with McCain. On his radio show very recently, Howard Stern played a tape of random interviews of Obama supporters in New York, who weren’t even aware of what they were agreeing to. All they heard was Obama’s name, and automatically answered, “Yeah,” “Uh‑Huh,” and “Okay by me” to every question the interviewer posed, despite the fact the interviewer had juxtaposed McCain’s policies for Obama’s. It apparently matters not that Louis Farrakhan publicly proclaimed Obama as their Messiah – the Chosen One. That is what angers and frightens us – that few seem to notice.

These New Yorkers are not isolated voters, but are more than likely a good representation of the majority of ACORN-induced registrations. We are equally tired of the race card being shouted out every time we open our mouths to breathe. Republicans, as a whole, are not, nor ever have been, the party of racism. Red Alert: When and if the Bradley Effect should occur, it will not be Republicans in the voting booth.

Senator McCain’s performance in the first two of three critical debates was embarrassing. The old saying “nice guys finish last” endures for a reason. A presidential debate is for engaging in a formal argument of the issues, not a recitation of talking points. His performance was and is critical -- because we have but one opportunity left to confront Barack Obama on the issues and on his questionable alliances before a national audience - live and unfiltered by liberal malarkey.

Say what you will about the liberal leaning moderators, they cannot outsmart a smart candidate.

If John McCain is unable to close the deal for the Republicans tonight, it won’t be long before our party becomes the hangout for the lonely and the desperate, where we’ll all be banging into each other, for God knows how long, like billiard balls on an uneven and hostile surface.