Vanity Fair: Opinion- S.E. Cupp: ‘The Conservative Coma’

Source:Vanity Fair– Taking America back to the 1950s?

Source:The New Democrat

When I think of the Grand Ole Party ( and saying that with a straight face anymore is getting very difficult ) I think of a Conservative Republican Party that was hawkish when it came to not just Communists and communism, but authoritarians and authoritarianism in general. That actually believed deficits matter. ( Which night sound crazy in the Trumpian Republican Party today ) That actually believed not only in entitlement reform, but that it was necessary. That if Republicans as a party are going to believe in and support programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that they should all be on sound fiscal footing and not blow up the deficit.

It was a party that believed that race, ethnicity, and gender didn’t matter. Which why it supported the civil rights laws of the 1960s while opposing affirmative action in the 1970s, because the GOP believed that people shouldn’t be promoted, demoted, empowered or denied simply because of their race, ethnicity or religion. A party that not only believed in immigration, but that anyone regardless of what country or region of the world, regardless of their race or ethnicity should be allowed to come to America legally if they work hard and contribute to America and obey our laws.

A party that was strong on defense, but didn’t believe America shouldn’t try to police the world and try force our values on other countries and tell them this is how they should govern themselves. For the most part this Republican value is still in place with the Neoconservatives thanks to the Iraq War losing almost all influence on Republican foreign and national security policy. A party that still believed in limited government even with the Christian-Right becoming a force in the party, but that still believed in that Barry Goldwater line that said he didn’t want big government in our wallets, bedrooms, boardrooms, or classrooms.

That was the Republican Party that I grew up. I come from a Democratic family, but that’s what the Republican Party use to be and what the Republican Party was when I grew up. And expect for the national debt and deficits, President Ronald Reagan believed in most if not all of those values. He did have his own big government issues with the national debt, deficits, and his expansion of the War on Drugs in the 1980s, but basically he represented and lead what was the Grand Ole Party very well in the 1980s. This is not the Republican Party today and I when I think of RINOS, ( Republicans in name only ) I believe in so-called Republicans who don’t even really believe in the concept of a republic and instead want to create a fundamentalist Christian society where their religious values are not only dominant, but become official government policy.

The GOP is not dead. You still have the S.E. Cupp’s of the world, as well as Republicans like Margaret Hoover, Amanda Carpenter, Tara Setmeyer, Bill Kristol, and a few others at CNN. They’re still some GOP Republicans in Congress like outgoing Senator’s Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan, incoming Senator Mitt Romney once he takes his Senate seat in the next Congress. But the Republican Party today is now the Donald Trump Nationalist Party. That puts groups of Americans against each other and no longer preaches about America being the city on a shining hill. And instead preaches that, “you’re either with us or against us.” Meaning you either support President Donald Trump, or you’re Un-American and a RINO.

The Republican or Nationalist or RINO Party ( depending on how you want to label the modern Republican Party ) is now the party that represents the 1950s that was reborn in this century, but come from the 1950s culturally and ideologically. Where women’s place in the world is at home, African-Americans and other non-Anglo-Saxons are second-class citizens if citizens at all. Gays are either locked in the closet, or locked in prison or some mental institution.

Today’s so-called Republican party is really now an anti-conservative party, because they now believe character and morality doesn’t matter just as long as you either serve, back, or defend President Donald Trump and the people who support the President. And that instead of defending and supporting the status quo and and conserving our individual rights which is what Conservatives are supposed to support, they now want to blow up the system and establishment and create a society and establishment that supports them and what they being the Trump Nationalist movement supports and believes in.

If you read Joshua Green’s The Devil’s Bargain, he reports and argues that the Republican Party Leadership and base got in bed with Donald Trump in 2015-16, because even though they were aware of all of Donald Trump’s faults when it came to his lack of character and civility, that if he became President with a Republican Congress and Judiciary that they would get from a President Trump the things that they’ve been fighting for and wanted ever since Barack Obama became President. Things like deregulation, tax cuts, judicial appointments, a larger defense budget, etc. And that every time President Trump would do something that’s unconventional ( to be kind ) or irresponsible, reckless, anti-conservative like appeasing dictators, they would just chalk it up to Donald Trump not being a conventional politician and new to Washington. Which is exactly what’ we’ve seen the last two years with Donald Trump as President.

The GOP is not dead, but they’re not unfortunately now a small faction of the Republican Party. The never-trumpers are what left of the Grand Ole Party. They’re the Republicans ( not RINOS ) who believe that deficits and the national debt actually do matter, expect for perhaps Bill Kristol who is a Neoconservative. They don’t just support entitlement reform, but believe it’s necessary. They support legal immigration and believe it benefits the country and aren’t worried about America losing it’s European culture because they don’t believe one race or ethnicity is superior to any other. They by enlarge don’t want big government in our economic or personal affairs. I’ve argued for a while now that the Republican Party is no longer a conservative party, but party with a conservative faction and the Donald Trump experiment and his movement make that argument for me perfectly.

Source:CNN: State of The Union- S.E. Cupp: Conservative Movement is in a Coma– CNN political analyst S.E. Cupp 

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Remember This: C-SPAN- Carl Rutan Interviewing Pat Buchanan in 1988: Back to The 1950s and 1980s

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

The world that Pat Buchanan was talking about and advocating for in this 1988 interview, simply doesn’t exist anymore and we were moving away from it in 1988 if not only escaped from there by then. Gays, no longer live in the closet. African-Americans, have just as much right to vote and are treated the same as Caucasian-Americans now. Women, now work and hold very responsible jobs, making good money, running and managing their own business’s. The music is much different and much more open about life. Americans, now have the freedom and feel the freedom to be themselves. Which is Americans and individuals and we live our lives the way we want to. Not how Pat Buchanan and other Christian-Conservatives feel we should live.

The 1950s, was great for America in many ways. We were not just the economic superpower of the world, but became the number one military and diplomatic power in the world. This was post-World War II where our economy boomed and our infrastructure system boomed as a result. But the problem with this era was that many Americans didn’t benefit from these American advances. Not because of anything that they did, but because of how they were born. Their complexion, their race, their ethnicity, their religion, their gender. Not because they were, or could be any less productive than Anglo-Saxon Protestant men. What the 1960s and the 1980s brought to America, was true individual freedom. Both from a personal and economic standpoint.

If you watch this video, think you see Pat Buchanan, essentially acknowledging what I’m arguing here. That the America that he grew up with in the 1950s simply no longer exists. And when he was asked, “do you want to use government to bring that America back?” He answered truthfully and honestly and said he doesn’t believe that, because its simply not possible. Which is a very practical answer and the correct answer. As far as the 1988 presidential election, you had Vice President George H.W. Bush, for the Republican Party. Who represented President Ronald Reagan and his policies in that election. Going up against Governor Michael Dukakis, who represented the New America and the direction that America has been moving to ever since.
Remember This-C-SPAN: Pat Buchanan- Biography, Apartheid, Culture War, Foreign Policy, Free Trade: 1988 Interview

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Strode Reality: Video: Andrew Sullivan: The Politics of Homosexuality: Intro on Prohibition

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This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Times on Blogger

As a straight man I’m obviously not the most qualified person to speak about homosexuality and what homosexuals go through in America or anywhere else around the world. But I am qualified to speak about what I see as far as the bigotry that’s thrown at homosexuals as a Liberal, as a blogger and as someone who is friends with gay people and someone whose worked with Gay people as well. Plus the bigotry that I’ve seen and read get thrown at gays just because they are gay and who they are attracted to.

And how gays carry themselves. Which is what I’m going to do in this blog, and not trying to speak as an expert on homosexuality which I’m clearly not. Just like a gay person wouldn’t be an expert on heterosexuality because of simple fact they aren’t straight and they do not know what it’s like to be straight. And bisexuals may be the only people who could possibly be qualified to be experts on both homosexuality and heterosexuality because they’ve lived the life as both at least to a certain extent.

As a Liberal I actually do believe in the old fashion conservative notion of personal responsibility. That we must be held accountable for our actions for good and bad. Fine I agree with that, but I’m going to give homophobes a pass when it comes to their homophobia just for this reason. Because and I don’t know this as a fact, but if I had to guess the overwhelming majority of homophobes didn’t decide that they are against homosexuality. Or the way they would put it, they do not agree with homosexuality. When they turned eighteen or twenty-one.

That its something that was already part of homophobes lives much longer before those two very important birthdays. And that since a lot of their homophobia if not all of it comes from a religious vantage point and they grow up in strict religious households or communities, that a lot of their homophobia comes to them when they are in church or from their families. That’s one theory and the other one coming from lets say lack of exposure to gay people and not being friends with those people and not having a good idea what its like to be around gay people.

This might sound like a fantasy or something, but I bet if you took the one-hundred of the most bigoted homophobes who didn’t have violent or murderous tendencies, that their homophobia was purely verbal and how they think rather than how they act and you had them live in a community of homosexuals for let’s say a week or a month or even longer than that, the Homophobes views of homosexuals would change drastically. Because they would see that gay people are people almost just like them, but attracted to the other gender and perhaps a little more feminine or masculine. To play off of a gay stereotype.

And that hay people perhaps have different interests, but that they would find things to agree on as well. And even talk about that and homophobia like all other forms of bigotry are based on simple ignorance. Having strong feelings about something that you simply don’t know much about which of course is dangerous. I really believe this because just look at the last ten years where back in 2003-04 gay-marriage was seen as a fringe issue. Now at least half of Americans are in favor of gay-marriage.

But even ten years ago when gay-marriage was unpopular the idea of civil unions seemed mainstream and an appropriate alternative. So we’ve made a lot of progress in just ten years. Which gets to my point that the more people know about something and see that it’s not dangerous and certainly not a threat to you, the harder it is to hate that thing. And more Americans are simply learning more about homosexuality and knowing gay people and seeing that these people are good people by in large just like straights.

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The Film Archives: U.S. Representative Bob Dornan: ‘Gets His Words in a One-Minute Speech Stricken Down in 1995’

Source:The Film Archives– U.S. Representative Bob Dornan (Republican, California) they didn’t call Bob Dornan B-One Bob for nothing: he was a right-wing bomb thrower.

Source:The New Democrat

“Robert Kenneth “Bob” Dornan (born April 3, 1933) is a Republican and former member of the United States House of Representatives from California and a vocal advocate of pro-life and social conservative causes.

A boisterous former actor and television talk show host, Dornan had a flair for the dramatic that drew him supporters and detractors well beyond his congressional districts. Though never a major power in Washington, he became one of the most well-known members of the House of Representatives and has been described as “one of the leading firebrands among American politicians.”

In 1995, he received a minor reprimand from the House for stating in a floor speech that President Bill Clinton had “given aid and comfort to the enemy” during the Vietnam War. In 1996, Dornan ran for President of the United States, using his campaign primarily as a vehicle to continue to criticize Clinton. In a GOP debate in Iowa on January 13, Dornan called Clinton a “criminal” and a “pathological liar.” When asked why voters should choose Dornan over his Republican rivals to challenge Clinton in the general election, he argued that he had more children and grandchildren than the others, with only Richard Lugar coming anywhere near him on that score…

From The Film Archives

Representative Bob Dornan wasn’t called “B One Bob” for nothing he had a tendency to say nutty things and throw a lot of partisan bombs out there without a lot of thought.

Another way to describe Bob Dornan would The Blind Bomber, or Kamikaze Bomber, because again he had a tendency to say things blindly without much though put into his comments at least as far as the consequences for saying some of the things that he did.

B-One Bob also had an overly partisan nature and the district that he represented in California, this overly partisan approach cost him his House seat in 1996 to Loretta Sanchez. Whose still in the House today and has been there since 1997.

Bob Dornan’s approach is very well-suited to talk radio and perhaps cable talk TV, not well-suited for Congress, even in the House of Representatives, where there are rules in place for how members address each other and how they address the President of the United States.

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CSPAN: Andrew Sullivan vs Dennis Prager- Same-Sex Marriage (1996)

Source:CSPAN– the House Judiciary Committee holding a hearing on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
Source:The New Democrat  

“The House Judiciary Subcommittee heard testimony concerning the Defense of Marriage Act from activists, state legislators and others.”

From CSPAN

Source:CSPAN– Conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan, arguing against the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, at the House Judiciary Committee in 1996.

If you believe in freedom of choice and even individual freedom and liberty, as well as marriage, and that people who are in love with each other should be get married, then you shouldn’t have a problem with same-sex-marriage, if you’re also a constitutionalist. Because marriage whether it’s straight or gay is about uniting a partnership between two people that are in-love with each other.

If your politics if defined by your religious and cultural views and not by the U.S. Constitution and your religion and politics are fundamentalist, then of course same-sex-marriage is going to be a problem for you. Hell, if you’re a religious fundamentalist, you probably don’t believe that gays should be allowed to freely walk the streets, let alone be in-love with each other or get married.

I look at same-sex-marriage and homosexuality the way I look at all freedom of choice issues: does someone’s else personal choice affect me in a negative way or not. If the answer is no, then what do I care if gays want to get married or do anything else with each other, just as long as they’re not hurting any innocent person with what they’re doing.

The Andrew Sullivan-Dennis Prager debate about same-sex-marriage and perhaps homosexuality in general, is about the Constitution, freedom of choice, and individual liberty, versus religious fundamentalism and perhaps nationalism and the idea that these fundamentalist values are so powerful, that everyone else should be forced to live under them, even if they disagree with them.

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The Fiscal Times: Nicholas Wapshott: ‘How The GOP Turned From Pragmatism to Tribalism’

Source:The Fiscal Times– from left to right: Speaker of the House John Boehner (Republican, Ohio) House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Republican, Virginia) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky)

“Once a happy band of no-nonsense, pro-business conservatives, cautious in everything from money to marriage — including their wary response to the onward march of 1960s liberal social values — they were prepared, within reason, to trim their policies to match the voters’ mood. After all, to achieve anything in government you first have to win elections.

But that was before the revival in fundamental conservatism that has turned the GOP from a pragmatic party to a collection of inward-looking ideological tribes. Republicans puzzled by the rise of dogma and division in their party can find answers in a new survey that explains how large the factions are and what they think. They will be surprised by the findings.

RELATED: MORE SHUTDOWN FALLOUT FOR THE GOP IN THE SENATE

The GOP has long been considered a three-legged stool: big business, Southern evangelical Christians and anti-government Westerners. But, largely since the world financial panic of 2008-9, these three have been joined by two new aggressive, popular movements: the Tea Party and the libertarians.”

From The Fiscal Times

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PBS Newshour: ‘Shields and Brooks on Secretary John Kerry’s Role in Syria Talks’

Source:PBS NewsHour– Mark Shields, David Brooks, and Judy Woodruff.

“Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s top political news, including U.S. diplomatic efforts on Syria and John Kerry’s influence as secretary of state, the lack of leverage for leading lawmakers among their own parties and the 2008 financial collapse.”

From the PBS NewsHour

“The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and television program distributor[6] based in Arlington, Virginia. The PBS is a publicly funded[7] nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programming to public television stations in the United States, distributing series such as American Experience, America’s Test Kitchen, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Barney & Friends, Between the Lions, Cyberchase, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Downton Abbey, Wild Kratts, Finding Your Roots, Frontline, The Magic School Bus, The Kidsongs Television Show, Masterpiece Theater, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Nature, Nature Cat, Nova, PBS NewsHour, Peg + Cat, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Teletubbies, Keeping Up Appearances, and This Old House.[8]

PBS is funded by a combination of member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, pledge drives, and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens. All proposed funding for programming is subject to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source.[9] PBS has over 350 member television stations, many owned by educational institutions, nonprofit groups both independent or affiliated with one particular local public school district or collegiate educational institution, or entities owned by or related to state government.”

From Wikipedia

To get a real negotiated deal that isn’t an embarrassment to anyone who believes in human rights has to have a real threat of force that means America doesn’t take military force off the table coming from them. And doesn’t take arming the Syrian rebels off the table as well.

What the Assad Regime would get in return is that America wouldn’t take Bashar Al-Assad out-of-power with a military intervention. As long as the Assad Regime doesn’t use weapons of mass destruction against their own people again. In return what America and the Syrian rebels get in return is the Assad Regime giving up their chemical weapons. While the Syrian opposition and the Assad Regime continue to decide the future of Syria, without the international community stepping in militarily with an invasion.

That would be the best deal that the West and Syrian opposition could live with and save face and now reward the Assad Regime for gassing their own people, which would be a horrible precedent to set.

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Bill Maher: On Stupid Right-Wingers

 

Source:John P. McCartney– Real Time With Bill Maher.

“If you think Democrats are going to take away your Bible, you’re an idiot. If you think they are going to take away your gun, you’re an armed idiot. If you think they’re going to take away your gun and give it to a Mexican to kill your God, you’re Bill O’Reilly.” 

From AZ Quotes

Bill Maher’s message here is for everyone who went out to lunch, got lost, and never made it back. (I went to high school with people like that) As well as every escaped mental patient out there who didn’t take enough medication with them before they escaped the institution and didn’t lose touch with reality because they’ve never been within shouting distance of reality, but are now seeing Democrats in their pipe dreams who are closing down their Protestant churches and breaking into their homes to steal their guns. 

 

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Sam Seder: Federal Judge Blocks 6-Week Abortion Banning Bill

Source:The Majority Report– pro-choice activists on abortion.

“A federal judge in North Dakota has issued a block on the country’s most restrictive abortion law, the “fetal heartbeat” ban, stating it is unconstitutional…

This clip from the Majority Report, live M-F at 12 noon EST and via daily podcast at:The Majority Report.”

Source:The Majority Report

I don’t love it, but I do find it amusing, even sadly so when I hear people who call themselves fiscal Conservatives, who claim government is too big and spends too much money and yet they spend taxpayer dollars on bills that if they don’t know that they’ll get thrown out on constitutional grounds. Their lawyers at the very least are smart enough to know that. And yet taxpayers still have to pay for the costs of them writing their bills and paying for staff’s work and everything else. North Dakota and their anti-abortion bill, that bans abortion after six-weeks of pregnancy, is a perfect example of that.

If you can forget about the unconstitutionality and big government aspects of the bill, with the state stepping in to make health care decision for competent women, you can also dislike the bill for the waste of tax dollars that come with it. Money that could be used to pay for schools, roads, hospitals, law enforcement, jails, prisons, or lowering property taxes, is being spent to pass a bill that will eventually get thrown out. And that is before you add up the costs of what it will take to defend the unconstitutional law in the first place.

But the politics and politicians don’t take positions too many times to be consistent and accurate. But to meet short-term, political goals. Which is why they’re not leaders, but sheep trapped in herds instead.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on WordPress.

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PBS: Newshour- Shields and Brooks: ‘On Sarah Palin’

Source:PBS NewsHour– Mark Shields and David Brooks.

“The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and television program distributor[6] based in Arlington, Virginia. It is a publicly funded[7] nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programming to public television stations in the United States, distributing series such as American Experience, America’s Test Kitchen, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Barney & Friends, Between the Lions, Cyberchase, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Downton Abbey, Wild Kratts, Finding Your Roots, Frontline, The Magic School Bus, The Kidsongs Television Show, Masterpiece Theater, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Nature, Nature Cat, Nova, PBS NewsHour, Peg + Cat, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Teletubbies, Keeping up Appearances, and This Old House.[8]

PBS is funded by a combination of member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Datacast, pledge drives, and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens. All proposed funding for programming is subject to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source.[9] PBS has over 350 member television stations, many owned by educational institutions, nonprofit groups both independent or affiliated with one particular local public school district or collegiate educational institution, or entities owned by or related to state government.”

From Wikipedia 

“In this episode of the Doubleheader — where syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks tackle the sport of politics and the politics of sport with Correspondent Hari Sreenivasan — the guys discuss the kerfuffle in Alaska between former Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Mark Begich, plus the hitting phenom tearing through baseball, Yasiel Puig.”

From the PBS NewsHour

As much as Congress is put down and looked down upon (and I’m one of them) the House of Representatives and Senate are serious institutions and Congress as a whole is a serious. (Or at least it’s supposed to be since it’s funded by our tax dollars) Congress is supposed to be an institution with serious people who run for Congress in both chambers for the right reasons.

Of course there are people who quite frankly do not deserve there even if their voters deserve to have them there, but by in-large members of Congress are there because they want to serve their country and the people they represent. Who are well-educated and well qualified to serve in government who could make a hell of a lot more money outside of government including serving the public outside of government like at think tanks and writing books and teaching, and so-forth. Rather than deal with the stress and other difficulties that come with being in Congress either the House or Senate.

I just told you why Sarah Palin won’t even run let alone get elected to the United State Senate, because she’s not in politics to serve in government, but to get her views known about American politics. And make a lot of money doing that and that she’s not much more than a political celebrity and commentator (sort of the Kim Kardashian of American politics) and bash people that she doesn’t like, like establishment, Center-Right, business-oriented Republicans, who aren’t culture warriors.

Government and politics is supposed to be for serious people who want to serve our country. That’s one reason why we our forced to send our tax dollars to Washington. Not to pay for the advancement of the careers of political celebrities whose only real skill is pissing people off and drawing a lot of ratings for cable networks and partisan publications. The latter is what Sarah Palin is a natural at and something she’s making a lot of money doing. But governing is not for her because she’s not a serious politician and never has been.

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