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Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

RNC URGED TO DENOUNCE SOCIALIST BAILOUT AND POLICIES OF PRESIDENT AND CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS


Yesterday The Washington Times reported that members of the Republican National Committee will consider a resolution in January that is critical of President Bush and Republican Members of Congress for supporting the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector and other socialist policies.


Sunlit Uplands has obtained the full text of the resolution which has been drafted by RNC Vice Chairman James Bopp, Jr. and is supported by 24 other Republican National Committee members.


We strongly support this effort to return the Republican Party to its moorings and the core principles of freedom, small government, low taxes, free enterprise and individual liberty. We have lost the White House and the Congress because the President and too many Republican members of Congress abandoned those principles. Having lost national leadership, it is now essential that the Republican National Committee take a major, unprecedented role in defending the U. S. Constitution and the principles to which the Republican Party has historically been committed. In the words of Ronald Reagan, let's raise "a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people."


The full text of Mr. Bopp’s resolution follows. Readers who wish to support this resolution and return the Republican Party to the conservative vision of Ronald Reagan are encouraged to show their support by signing an online petition here.



RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO TAKE ALL STEPS NECESSARY TO OPPOSE BAILOUTS OF INDUSTRIES, INDIVIDUALS, OR GOVERNMENTS BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND TO AGGRESSIVELY PROMOTE THE CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN PUBLIC POLICY DEBATES


WHEREAS, America is embroiled in an economic crisis which threatens to become a severe and prolonged recession; and


WHEREAS, as an alleged remedy to the economic crisis, the United States Congress proposed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (“Bank Bailout Bill”), which would authorize the United States Secretary of the Treasury to spend up to $700 billion dollars to bail out the financial industry from the consequences of its own poor decisions and misguided government policies, by purchasing distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, and make capital injections into banks; and


WHEREAS, when the original Bank Bailout Bill failed to pass, it was augmented with$150 billion dollars in additional, unnecessary spending designed to earn the incumbent politicians who voted for it the support of their constituents back home; and


WHEREAS, Congress adopted, and the President signed, the bloated Bank Bailout Bill; and


WHEREAS, the Bank Bailout Bill has neither reversed the economic crisis nor protected the taxpayers, but rather has added $850 billion dollars to their tax bill and raised the national debt ceiling from $10 trillion to $11.3 trillion, which has the potential long-term effect of further weakening the economy; and


WHEREAS, the Bank Bailout Bill effectively nationalized the Nation’s banking system, giving the United States non-voting warrants from participating financial institutions, and moving our free market based economy another dangerous step closer toward socialism; and


WHEREAS, what was needed, and is still needed, to fix the banking industry is not a bailout, but rather a commitment to fiscal responsibility. This entails more than considering only the quick fixes for Wall Street. It also entails considering how to restore Wall Street to sustainable profitability. It involves common sense legislation from Congress, such as (1) eliminating the capital gains tax, which will lead investors to flood the real estate and financial markets in search of tax-free profits, creating liquidity in the markets; (2) examining, and if need be, amending the Community Reinvestment Act (Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.), to ensure that it accomplishes its purpose of preventing discriminatory lending without also forcing the financial industry to engage in high risk lending; and (3) adopting a “hands off” approach from government toward the financial sector, so that free-market forces can correct the market; and


WHEREAS, there have been other federal government bailouts, including the $85 billion dollar bailout of American International Group Inc. in return for its nationalization, with the United States acquiring an almost eighty percent equity stake in the company, a bailout and nationalization of Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac, and a bailout of Bear Sterns; and


WHEREAS, the cost to the American taxpayers of the various bailouts enacted by the 110th Congress and signed into law by the President is potentially $8.7 trillion dollars; and


WHEREAS, none of these bailouts have forestalled the economic recession, protected the jobs of American workers, made American companies more competitive, or relieved the tax burden on American taxpayers, but rather have threatened to deepen the economic recession, and have increased the national debt and the burden faced by the American taxpayers; and


WHEREAS, the “Big Three” Automakers (Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford) appealed to Congress for a bailout bill of their own, seeking up to $34 billion dollars in emergency aid; and


WHEREAS, the American people overwhelmingly oppose a bailout of the Big Three, with 61% of those polled opposing government assistance to the automakers and 70% saying that such assistance would be unfair to American taxpayers; and


WHEREAS, when faced with both Congressional and public disapproval, Ford announced that it
did not need actually need federal money at this time, but Chrysler and General Motors continued to request financial assistance from the government; and


WHEREAS, on December 11, 2008, the House of Representatives passed the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act (H.R. 7321) (“Auto Bailout Bill”), which authorized $14 billion dollars in loans to the automobile industry in exchange for, among other things, the nationalization of the auto industry, whereby the United States receives warrants for up to 20% of the common or preferred stock of each automaker, and the appointment by the President of an executive officer (“Car Czar”) to oversee various aspects of the auto industry’s business; and


WHEREAS, the Auto Bailout Bill was rejected in the United States Senate, garnering only 52 of the 60 votes necessary to bring the Bill to the Floor for consideration; and


WHEREAS, on December 19, 2008, the President announced that he would create a $17.4 billion dollar Auto Bailout Package for the auto industry, taking the money from the funds appropriated by the Bank Bailout Bill; and


WHEREAS, the President has announced that Chrysler and GM must prove they are financially viable by March 31, 2009, or face the possibility—but only the possibility—of the recall of the funds extended to bail them out; and


WHEREAS, President-elect Obama is under no obligation to insist that Chrysler and GM meet this obligation, or pay back the money used to bail them out and the UAW is already calling on President-elect Obama to reject the wage reduction requirements of the Auto Bailout Package; and


WHEREAS, the Auto Bailout Package is not only a bailout of the bad management decisions of the leadership of the automobile industry, but also a bailout of the leadership of the United Auto Workers union (UAW), whose excessive labor wage and benefit demands have substantially contributed to the automobile industry’s financial woes, as demonstrated by the fact that the average hourly cost to the unionized Big Three Automakers for its workers’ salary and benefits is nearly $80 per hour, compared with Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, whose total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits, are about $48 per hour; and


WHEREAS, the UAW has steadfastly refused to renegotiate its current labor contracts to ease the financial burden on the Big Three, and has also self-servingly insisted that bankruptcy was not an option for any of the Big Three, because bankruptcy would allow a renegotiation of their labor contracts; and


WHEREAS, bailing out the UAW with the Auto Bailout Package will not make the automobile industry solvent, because it does not address the underlying cause of its financial difficulties, but merely applies a band aid to tide the industry over for the time being; and


WHEREAS, the open-ended nature of the Auto Bailout Package, which only contains the possibility of a recall of the bailout money if Chrysler and GM do not have a plan for financial viability by March 31, 2009, will not provide incentive to their leadership and the leadership of the UAW to create a financially viable business plan, but rather will encourage them to continue ‘business as usual’ and count on future government bailouts whenever such are needed; and


WHEREAS, the men and women who work in the automobile industry are patriotic Americans who work hard to supply America with automobiles and also to provide a decent living for themselves and their families; and


WHEREAS, America’s auto workers are not helped by a temporary band aid which does not require the automobile industry and the UAW to change practices and create a sustainable profitability. Rather, they need a solution that will enable the American automobile industry to recover and thrive again in order to ensure the long-term survival of their jobs; and


WHEREAS, what is needed to fix the American automobile industry is restructuring that will eliminate the competitive disadvantage faced in their costs and finished products relative to foreign brands, which can only be accomplished by (1) negotiating new labor agreements to align their pay and benefits to match those of their competitors; (2) reducing the benefits paid to their retirees so that the total burden per auto for the Big Three is not higher than that of foreign companies; (3) restructuring their business plans with an eye to the future, such that they invest in competitive products and innovative, fuel-saving technologies; and (4) recruiting management teams who excel in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations; and


WHEREAS, a group of governors met with President-elect Obama to press for their own bailout plan, whereby federal taxpayer would pay $136 billion for state infrastructure projects and untold billions of dollars for state health care costs; and


WHEREAS, President-elect Barack Obama decided to propose an enormous public works project, which is really a cleverly disguised Government Bailout Plan designed to bail out state and local governments by providing federal tax dollars to repair and rebuild their local infrastructure; and


WHEREAS, some have proposed spending up to $1 trillion dollars to fund the President-elect’s Government Bailout Plan; and,


WHEREAS, the Government Bailout Plan will be the biggest earmarked spending program in our Nation’s history;


WHEREAS, the Government Bailout Plan will not fix our economic woes, but rather will extend the current economic crisis, much as President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration extended the Great Depression, and will cost the American taxpayers $1 trillion dollars or more; and


WHEREAS, what is needed to ease unemployment and stimulate the economy is not a Government Bailout Plan to bail out state and local governments from their deficit spending, but rather common sense solutions which will work, including (1) lowering our corporate tax rate which is the second highest in the world and fifty percent higher than our international competitors, so that corporations will have more ability to invest in product development and job creation; (2) lowering taxes on the middle class and eliminating the capital gains tax, so that America’s families will have more money to invest and spend for their families’ needs; (3) spending to replenish and, where necessary, modernize our military equipment and improve our national defense capabilities against both foreign nations and terrorists; (3) investing in energy research, exploration and development to free our Nation from its dependence on foreign oil; and (4) eliminating wasteful government spending and restructuring government programs that can be accomplished more efficiently. Together, these measures will create jobs, energize the economy and protect our national freedoms, all of which will improve the quality of life of the American family; and


WHEREAS, the Republican Party must, for the good of America, reestablish our commitment to the common sense, conservative values of free enterprise, free markets, limited government, and personal responsibility, which are advocated by the Republican National Committee in its national platform; and


THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Members of the Republican National Committee commend the Members of Congress who have opposed the bills seeking to bailout American industries and to nationalize American companies; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Members of the Republican National Committee call for all Members of Congress to oppose any and all future bailouts that might come before the Congress, including President-elect Obama’s public works program; and


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Members of the Republican National Committee call on Congress to identify the government programs and policies which have lead to the current economic crisis and to revise or repeal them in favor of government policies which promote free enterprise and free markets;


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee, in cooperation with Republican Members of Congress and the Republican Governors of the various states, shall be authorized to engage in vigorous debate on public policy issues, including calling for Congress to oppose measures which are detrimental to the welfare of our Nation and our People, consistent with the conservative principles of the Republican Party as expressed in its national platform, and to devote appropriate resources of the RNC for this purpose.


Submitted by


James Bopp, Jr., NCM IN
Randy Pullen SC AZ
Lilly Nunez NCW CO
Dick Wadhams SC CO
Sharon Day NCW FL
Steve Scheffler NCM IA
Kim Lehman NCW IA
Cindy Moyle NCW ID
Dee Dee Benkie NCW IN
Helen Van Etten NCW KS
Kris Kobach SC KS
Evie Axdahl NCW MN
Cindy Phillips NCW MS
Pete Ricketts NCM NE
Sean Mahoney NCM NH
Rosie Tripp NCM NM
Carolyn L. McLarty NCW OK
Solomon Yue NCM OR
Donna Cain NCW OR
Giovanni Cicione SC RI
Cynthia Costa NCM SC
Mary Jean Jensen NCW SD
Cathie Adams NCW TX
Fredi Simpson NCW WA
Diana Vaughan SC WY

Monday, December 1, 2008

Conservatives Have Important Political Value


From Aberdeen News
By Jon D. Schaff


The election drubbing recently taken by Republicans has given rise to much soul searching on the part of conservatives. What is the future of conservatism?

The conservative serves an important role in any regime. This is perhaps best illustrated by the story, perhaps apocryphal, of the slave who would ride behind a victorious Roman general during the triumphant return to Rome whispering in his ear “All glory is fleeting.”

The conservative's task is similar. It is for him to whisper in our ears “there are limits.” Human reason is not sufficient to solve all problems. Sin cannot be eradicated from the human soul. Society is sufficiently complex that it makes central planning difficult, if not impossible.


In the 19th century, Alexis De Tocqueville noted democracy's dangerous tendency to trust in the “indefinite perfectibility of man.”

But the conservative teaches that perfection is impossible. I recently asked a group of students what “utopia” means. They responded “a perfect society.” True enough, as this is how we often use the word. But “utopia” literally is from the Greek for “nowhere.” In other words, the perfect society is impossible.


Our love of even good things, conservatives teach us, must be a moderate love. To turn any particular thing into the sin qua non of justice is actually to do injustice.

The conservative reminds us that progress always comes with a cost. Perhaps one error of contemporary conservatives is to believe that the market is the sole of justice, perhaps promoting an immoderate love of the “progress” of economic change.


Conservatism suggests there is something worth conserving. As Abraham Lincoln famously put it, if conservative means favoring “the old and tried against the new and untried,” then he was a conservative. Lincoln gets at a central conservative truth: there is wisdom stored up across the ages that one discards at great peril.


Human order is a fragile thing. C.S. Lewis reminds that even war is not outside the norm of the human condition; war only “aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it,” and “human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.”

It took roughly 4,000 years to build a civilization that was not brutal and vulgar. We are to be reminded that the now seemingly barbaric “eye for an eye” was actually a major advance in human decency. If you kill one of mine I will only kill one, as opposed to all, of yours. Yet civilization is fragile, on a precipice as Lewis puts it. Conservatives do their job best when they remind us of the value of the past and to innovate only with great trepidation.

This is why conservatives question the redefining of marriage, the diminution of the sacredness of human life in the name of “choice” and the rejection, indeed outright mockery, of traditional religion. If Western civilization was built on the solid foundation of the Christian church and the morality it promoted (if not always practiced), then only a certain kind of ideological arrogance suggests that we can casually dispense with that foundation and retain the fruits of that civilization.


Conservatives will prove the faithful opposition if they successfully remind that majority that even audacious hope needs its limits.



Jon D. Schaff is associate professor of political science at Northern State University in Aberdeen, North Dakota. The views presented here are the author's own and do not represent those of Northern State University.



Friday, November 28, 2008

Is GOP Heading Down the Wrong Path?


From OneNewsNow
By Jim Brown

The Family Research Council is expressing frustration that some of the new leaders of the Republican Party want social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage to take a back seat to an agenda of smaller government and lower taxes.

New National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas recently spoke at a fundraising dinner for the Dallas Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual group that supports same-sex marriage. Sessions reportedly said the GOP can no longer run on just "guns, God, gays [and] taxes." David Nammo, executive director of Family Research Council Action, believes Sessions is heading down the wrong path.

"People are trying to rebrand the GOP; they're trying to find a course for the future. They want to get back in power, and many of the voices that the GOP is listening to is [sic] right-wrong decision sign smalltelling them we need to be moderate, we need to jettison the social conservative issues, we need to not talk about life or marriage," he contends. "And if that is what the direction of the GOP is going to be, I think they're going to find themselves in the minority party for many years to come."

Nammo contends FRC is even more concerned about the strategy of rising Republican stars such as former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Steele, who may be in line to chair the Republican National Committee, recently told NPR that the GOP needs to be more inclusive of groups like the Log Cabin Republicans. Sanford, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, said recently at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Florida that the GOP has alienated younger voters with its intolerance on homosexual issues.


Monday, November 24, 2008

Gallup Poll Finds Americans Want Republican Party to Stay Conservative


From LifeNews.com
By Steven Ertelt

A new national Gallup poll finds Americans want the Republican Party to stay conservative -- which appears they want the GOP to keep its pro-life stance on abortion. The party has been pro-life for decades and has a longstanding platform calling for a Constitutional amendment to protect human life.

The new poll, conducted from November 13-16 finds 59 percent of Republicans want the party to become even more conservative with 28 percent saying it should stay the same.

Just 12 percent of Republicans want the GOP to become less conservative.

Nationally, 57 percent of Americans want the party to become either more conservative (37%) or stay the same (20%) with 37 percent wanting it to become less conservative.

Looking at the crucial group of independent voters, some 57 percent of them want it to either become more conservative (35%) or stay the same (22%) while only 35 percent want it to become less conservative.

And it is no surprise that Democrats are the only group to want the party to shed it's historically conservative viewpoints, with 56 percent saying so. Still, 25 percent of Democrats want the GOP to become more conservative and 13 percent want it to stay the same.

That doesn't mean Americans view the party, which has nominated pro-life candidates in every presidential election since 1980, favorably.

The poll found just 34 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the party and a whopping 61 percent holding an unfavorable view.

"After suffering major blows in the election, the Republican Party is experiencing its worst image rating in a least a decade," the Gallup Poll reported.

Democrats, who have put forward pro-abortion presidential candidates in every election since 1980 and saw their most recent abortion advocate, Barack Obama, win narrowly earlier this month, are viewed more favorably.

Democrats have a favorability rating of 55 percent, about the same as last month.

Also, 91 percent of Democrats approved of their party and how it is operating compared with just 78 percent of Republicans.

The poll found the view Americans have of the Republican party tracks almost identically with the view they have of President Bush. With him out of the picture next year, the GOP can redefine itself and the Democratic Party will have to be content with hitching its fortunes to a President Obama.


Thursday, November 6, 2008

The Opportunity Presented by Catastrophe




In 1975 Ronald Reagan addressed CPAC, the annual conference for conservative activists. His speech followed the Watergate scandal, President Nixon’s resignation, President Ford’s highly unpopular pardon of the former President, and the resulting disastrous Congressional elections of 1974. In those elections Republicans lost 49 seats in the House of Representatives, giving Democrats more than two-thirds of all seats. In the Senate, Republicans lost four seats, giving Democrats a 61 to 38 margin. It was, like our own day, a dark hour for the Republican Party. But the advice President Reagan gave was the key to his own triumph and a conservative resurgence.

I don‘t know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party”—when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

President Reagan understood that when the Republican Party runs a Democrat-Lite candidate, promising less of the same, against a Democrat, the Democrat invariably wins. In a dangerous era, where the Constitution, individual liberty, and free enterprise will be challenged as never before, Republicans can champion the highest ideals of our republic and her people, not by offering less of the wrong prescription, but by rejecting it outright.

If we are to defend the principles and institutions of our republic, Republicans need to understand what it means to be a conservative Republican. We need to find leaders who have read Burke, Kirk, de Tocqueville and Hayek, who have thought deeply about the great philosophical issues of our time. We need to return to the true, Republican ideals of strict Constitutionalism and the conservative nationalism of leaders like Senator Robert Taft. We need leaders who have read the farewell addresses of Presidents Washington and Eisenhower and who understand the dangers of ever growing international entanglements and the threat of the military industrial complex.

We need to find leaders who, like President Reagan, not only believe with all their heart that conservative principles are the greatest guarantee to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but who can also communicate those sublime ideals in powerful, positive and winning ways.

We have endured catastrophe at the hands of a leader who pretended to be a conservative, while growing the size of the federal government by 60%, who believes that American exceptionalism means preemptive war and attempting to democratize Mesopotamia, who involved the federal government in areas such as education, expressly reserved by our Constitution to the states, who has nationalized banks, left our economy in shambles, and left the nation with the largest deficits in our history. Is it any wonder that Americans have rejected such “conservatism?”

Americans have consistently rejected moderate Republicans promising less of the same. They rejected President Ford, they rejected President George H. W. Bush after he squandered all that President Reagan had built, they rejected Bob Dole, and now they have rejected the Republican most inclined to “reach across the aisle” to cosponsor some of the most wrong-headed legislation with the Senate’s leading liberals.

The establishment Republicans who opposed President Reagan and are now attempting to destroy Governor Palin, will not go quietly. But one thing we can do to ensure no more Democrat-Lite presidential nominees, is to change party rules to allow only enrolled Republicans to vote in Republican primaries. Senator McCain would not have been the Republican nominee without winning the crucial South Carolina primary. But it was Democrat votes that provided his margin of victory. Governor Huckabee was the choice of Republican voters.

The years ahead should give Republicans an extraordinary opportunity to rediscover forgotten principles and to clarify what our party truly stands for. The differences are stark and fundamental. Do we preserve the old republic and its constitution, or yield to those who believe it is “defective?” Do we stand for individual liberty and free enterprise, or differ on the details of a new, socialist model? Do we stand boldly for life, from conception to natural death, or accommodate those who would even let those babies surviving abortion die? Do we uphold God’s natural law regarding marriage, or allow it to be “redefined?” Do we fight for the free speech of talk radio, or allow it to be silenced?

If Republicans reject the “pastel colors” and fight for the Constitution and the old republic, the heavy keel of public opinion will guide our way and ensure our ultimate victory.


Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Do Party Platforms Really Matter?



A good friend of mine who is a Republican county chairman in a border state, and an incorrigible McCainiac, sees the presumptive Republican nominee as a transformational political figure who will remake the Republican Party in his own image. In his view, McCain can win without conservatives, and freed from their demands the party will rebuild itself with millions of independents, Latinos and Hillary backers who feel alienated from the Democrat Party.

In the following column, Phyllis Schlafly reminds us that we have been there before, many times in fact. As one of the culture wars' greatest generals, Phyllis Schlafly has been battling liberals for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and for principled conservative policy positions in its platforms for a half century. She knows that when the Republican Party has represented its conservative base and provided a clear alternative to the Democrats, it has been successful. However, when it has run on a platform dictated by liberals like Nelson Rockefeller, as in 1960, or when the nominee has repudiated a conservative platform, as Bob Dole did in 1996, it has lost.

The Republican Convention of 2008 may seem to many to be boring television. But a fierce battle will soon rage over such issues as the kind of judiciary we will have, whether or not we will secure our border and adopt English as our official language, whether we will preserve US sovereignty or subject ourselves to the dictates of the UN, and move toward a North American Union, whether we will continue to submit to trade agreements that export American manufacturing and jobs overseas, and whether the Republican Party will continue to stand up in defense of life, the institution of marriage, and traditional morality.

In this excellent article, Mrs. Schlafly calls on grass roots Americans to once again seize control of the Republican Party from the liberal elites and rebuild the conservative movement. Conservatives should take heart. Our General in that struggle is Phyllis Schlafly, while the other side is saddled with the likes of Christie Whitman. Bring it on!

Do Party Platforms Really Matter

By Phyllis Schlafly

One of the main features of any political convention is adoption of the platform, a statement of Party principles and goals. Some people take party platforms very seriously; others think they are a waste of time. Of course, they are often very wordy, not like the Phyllis Schlafly Report, which gives you more facts in fewer words than anything in print.

A party platform is like a creed. Most Christians recite their creed over and over again to strengthen their faith in what they believe. A party platform is also like the flag soldiers carry into battle. It's the symbol of what we think is worth our work and sacrifice. A party platform is published in the hope that like-minded Americans will join our cause. A party platform is the standard to which public officials may be held accountable.

Munich in Manhattan

At the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago, then-Vice President Richard Nixon was expected to be the presidential nominee. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller nursed a lifetime ambition to be President, but when he finally realized he could not beat Nixon for the nomination, he decided instead to make a fight to put his liberal planks in the Platform.

Rockefeller was the head of the New York, liberal, Big-Government, internationalist wing of the Republican Party that supported foreign and domestic policies similar to those of the Democrats, and whose me-too candidates had led Republicans down to defeat again and again.

If Rockefeller were alive today, he would be called a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Conservatives' animosity toward Rockefeller was a matter of geography, ideology, policy, and even morality. He walked out on his longtime wife and mother of his five children and stole another man's wife. As New York Governor, he signed one of the first laws legalizing abortion, before Roe v. Wade.

The week before the 1960 Convention, while the Platform Committee was hammering out its document in Chicago, Richard Nixon made a pilgrimage to New York City where he met for eight hours with Rockefeller in his Fifth Avenue apartment.

At the end of the day, Nixon agreed to support all the changes in the Platform dictated by Rockefeller. Nixon returned to Chicago and handed the Platform Committee its orders: throw out your week's work of hearing witnesses and drafting a document and accept all 14 Rockefeller demands.

There wasn't much substance in Rockefeller's changes, but in politics perception is reality. Nixon's acceptance of Rockefeller's language meant much more than mere changes in words. It meant that Nixon had purged himself of his independence and made himself acceptable to the Rockefeller wing of the Party.

The Chicago Tribune headlined its editorial "Grant Surrenders to Lee." Senator Barry Goldwater, who was very popular at the 1960 Convention, promptly labeled the new Nixon alliance a "surrender to Rockefeller" and "a bid to appease the Republican left." Goldwater said, "I believe this to be immoral politics." He said the Rockefeller-Nixon agreement will "live in history as the Munich of the Republican Party" and predicted it will guarantee "a Republican defeat in November."

Unfortunately, Goldwater's prediction was accurate. Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960. Goldwater sadly said, we lost "not because we were Republican, but because we were not Republican enough."

Americans then endured the presidential terms of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, which gave us major disasters from the Bay of Pigs to the Vietnam War.

When Richard Nixon was finally elected President in 1968, he turned out to be a RINO on almost every issue. He appointed Nelson Rockefeller's protege Henry Kissinger to direct all our foreign policy and national defense issues, which meant cuddling up to Soviet Russia and Red China. Nixon signed the infamous ABM treaty from which, 30 years later, the United States finally withdrew. Domestically, Nixon raised taxes and even imposed wage and price controls.

The Watergate debacle was followed by the accidental presidency of Gerald Ford, who also proved to be a RINO by choosing Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President.

Turning the Party Right

By 1976, conservatives were so dissatisfied and angry with those RINO administrations that California Governor Ronald Reagan was inspired to challenge incumbent President Gerald Ford. That was a daring move because it's seldom that an incumbent is defeated in his own party primary. The Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976 was very close; Reagan narrowly lost the presidential nomination to Ford by only 117 Delegate votes.

With hindsight we can see that the real importance of the 1976 Convention was the Platform. A first-term Senator from a southern state named Jesse Helms decided that the 1976 Republican Platform was the forum on which to rebuild the conservative movement that had eroded under Nixon, Ford, and their chief adviser, Henry Kissinger.

Jesse Helms wanted the Convention to adopt a strong Republican Platform that really stood for principles we could be proud of, such as military superiority "second to none," instead of Kissinger-style appeasement and retreat.

Helms also called for an approach that was unthinkable to establishment Republicans: a direct attack on the policies of the incumbent Republican President.

So, at the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Jesse Helms led the battle to adopt a Platform based on what he called "morality in foreign policy." It promised "a realistic assessment of the Communist challenge" and bluntly criticized any giveaway of the U.S. Canal in Panama or unilateral concessions to the Soviet Union.

In an upset victory, the 1976 Convention adopted the Helms Platform repudiating the Nixon-Ford-Kissinger foreign policy of d‚tente, and promising that we would "never tolerate a shift against us in the strategic balance."

That was the moment when the Republican Party turned toward victory over the Evil Empire and laid the basis for Ronald Reagan's principled campaign four years later. It set the stage for Reagan's determination that our attitude toward the Soviet Union should be "we win and they lose."

The 1976 Platform was not just about foreign policy; 1976 was the first Republican National Convention when the emerging pro-family movement raised its voice in politics. The 1976 Platform opposed "intrusion by the federal government" in education and called for constitutional amendments to restore prayer to schools and "to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children."

The 1976 Platform showed the country that the majority of Republicans disavowed the so-called moderates and RINOs and were determined to rebuild the Republican Party based on conservative principles — even if this required criticizing the Republican Executive Branch and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Correcting a Platform Mistake

In 1980 when Delegates gathered in Detroit for the Republican National Convention, the fact that Ronald Reagan was going to be nominated wasn't big news any more, so the media focused on the Equal Rights Amendment as the hottest Platform issue, giving ERA enormous publicity.

Regrettably, previous Republican platforms had endorsed ERA, and the feminists were determined to keep it that way. I was just as determined to take it out. Reagan had already announced his opposition to ERA, and we did not intend to let him be embarrassed by the feminists on this issue.

The radical feminists enjoyed the full support of the media for their street demonstrations and news conferences featuring the wife of the Michigan Governor, a Congresswoman, and the co-chair of the Republican Party.

Nevertheless, StopERAers and pro-lifers won big, both in the Platform Committee and the full Convention. ERA was permanently removed from the Republican Platform, and the Platform again affirmed "support of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children."

After the Platform vote was taken, RNC Co-Chairman Mary Dent Crisp, another RINO, shed real tears for the benefit of television cameras — and then she walked out of the Republican Party to support John Anderson, who ran as a Third Party candidate trying to defeat Ronald Reagan. You may have lost track of John Anderson; he later showed his true colors by becoming the head of the United World Federalists, which keeps trying to put the United States under world government.

Defining Conservatism in Dallas

At the 1984 Convention in Dallas where we renominated Ronald Reagan, the Platform did not duck any controversial issues. It took a strong stand against taxes, ERA, gay rights, quotas, government daycare, federal control of education, activist judges, pornography, gun control, the United Nations, and UNESCO, and a strong stand in favor of an anti-missile defense, parents' rights in public schools, and the protection of human life.

1984 was the year when Henry Hyde and I were the Illinois delegates on the Platform Committee, and the Party adopted this beautiful statement: "The unborn child has a fundamental, individual right to life which cannot be infringed."

Ronald Reagan offered us a vision of morning in America, reminding us: "Don't give up your ideals, don't compromise. Don't turn to expedience. . . . We can have that shining city on the hill — but we can have it only through God's grace, our own courage, and our own will to abide by the faith of our fathers." Republicans standing tall for conservative principles were rewarded by Reagan's 1984 landslide victory, which doubled the votes received by Barry Goldwater in 1964.

Defending the Pro-Life Plank

At the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, the renomination of the first George Bush was not controversial. The hottest issue became the attempt by some RINOs (they usually call themselves Moderates) to remove the pro-life plank from the Republican Platform. This effort was started by Mary Dent Crisp, the former RNC co-chair who had walked out of the Republican Party 12 years earlier to support a Third Party. Republicans had gotten along jolly well without her during the Reagan years but, in Houston, Crisp threatened to leave the Party again if we didn't remove the pro-life plank from the Platform.

That's when Colleen Parro and I founded Republican National Coalition for Life, a new organization with the specific mission of preserving the pro-life plank in the Republican Party Platform. Despite much hammering against us by the media, and equivocation by Republican Party officials, we were successful in Houston.

In 1996, two prominent RINO Republicans ran for nomination for President: California Governor Pete Wilson and Senator Arlen Specter. Both made removal of the pro-life plank from the Republican Platform the centerpiece of their campaigns. You've probably forgotten that they ran for President — their campaigns fizzled out so early.

At the 1996 National Convention in San Diego, the Platform Committee, which usually includes some members of Eagle Forum, stood like the Rock of Gibraltar in writing a splendid Platform of conservative Republican principles on political, economic, cultural, life, and national sovereignty issues.

Our presidential nominee Bob Dole then insulted the Delegates by announcing to the press, "I haven't read the Platform and I'm not bound by it anyway." His managers censored out of Dole's campaign the moral, cultural and sovereignty issues, which had been emphasized in the Platform, and Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton.

The Platform W. Ran On

By 2000, when the Delegates gathered in Philadelphia for the Republican National Convention, it had become very clear that the Republican nominee for President must be pro-life. Not a single pro-abortion candidate entered the race for President in 2000, and the pro-life plank in the Platform was adopted again by the Convention with little opposition.

George W. Bush ran and was elected on the strong Republican Platform adopted in Philadelphia in 2000. Here are a few of its planks in addition to the traditional language that "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life."

"We support the traditional definition of marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. . . . We do not believe sexual preference should be given special legal protection. . . We stand with the Boy Scouts of America, and support their positions. . . . We defend the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. . . . We support the recognition of English as the nation's common language. . . . We affirm the right of public schools, courthouses, and other public buildings to post copies of the Ten Commandments. . . . [We support the appointment of] judges who have demonstrated that they share . . . conservative beliefs and respect the Constitution. . . . We believe the military must no longer be the object of social experiments. . . . We affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service. . . . We support legislation prohibiting gambling on the Internet. . . . America must deploy effective missile defenses. . . . American troops must never serve under UN command or be subject to the jurisdiction of an International Criminal Court."

The Non-Grassroots Platform

The Platform Committee (officially called the Resolutions Committee) at the Republican National Convention consists of one man and one woman from each state. You also must be elected a Delegate. The usual procedure is that Platform Committee members are elected by each state's Delegates at their first caucus. The procedure is rather democratic (with a small d), so that the Platform Committee is usually representative of grassroots Republicans.

Unfortunately the Platform Committee at the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004 was very different. President Bush and Karl Rove gave orders to Republican State Chairmen not to let anyone on the Platform Committee who was not a public official or a Party official who could be told how to vote; and so 90% of Platform Committee members fit those categories. Senator Bill Frist, chairman of the national Platform Committee, ran it with a tight hand to exclude any plank that Bush didn't want and to praise George W. Bush on 89 of the Platform's 98 pages. Except for the pro-life plank and an excellent plank urging Congress to use its Article III power to limit the rule of supremacist judges, conservatives were unable to add strong planks on other issues they cared about, such as immigration.

Looking to the Future

We cannot allow the 2008 Platform Committee to be controlled by Party bosses or by the presidential nominee, first, because they support positions that are contrary to what the majority of Republicans want, and second because the Platform Committee should be a genuine grassroots voice.

The history of the battles over Republican Platforms teaches us that standing on principles of authentic conservatism and traditional values is the road to victory. Strong principled platforms are worth all the agony we put into writing and getting them adopted. They show that conservative Republicans do not have to settle for a liberal or a moderate or a RINO masquerading as a conservative because conservatives have the majority to demand candidates with the right stuff.

The voters will back a party that offers a pro-American foreign policy and trade policy, real tax cuts, and support for the Creator-endowed right to life and liberty of every individual. The voters will back opposition to United Nations treaties, federal control over classroom curricula, federal health care, and Open Borders policies that admit terrorists.

It's our job to get the Republican Party back on track after eight years of George W. Bush deviationism. We must establish conservative grassroots Republicanism as different from a Bush party. We made a great start in doing this by killing his deal to turn over our seaports to a Middle East government, Dubai Ports. We scored again by defeating his nomination of feminist Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. We had a smashing third victory by defeating his cooperation with Ted Kennedy to pass an amnesty bill in the Senate. The 2008 Platform must maintain our conservative momentum.

Key Issues for Grassroots Conservatives

  1. American Self-Government vs. Rule by Supremacist Judges. We must reject all rule by judges who believe the U.S. Constitution is a "living" document that they can re-interpret according to their own biases about "emerging standards." We cannot allow judges to declare unconstitutional the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the Boy Scout oath, the traditional definition of marriage, or parents' rights in public schools.
  2. Immigration/Border Security. We must not allow amnesty to be passed incrementally under dishonest labels like "comprehensive." We must demand border security, a double fence, increased border guards, employee verification, the tracking of visas for visitors, cooperation with local police, and an end to granting citizenship to "anchor babies." We must adopt English as our official language. We must recognize that the billions of dollars we've spent on the so-called war against drugs is a sham so long as we allow illegal drugs to come over our southern border.
  3. American Sovereignty. We must defeat all UN treaties such as the Law of the Sea Treaty, which was rejected by Ronald Reagan so long ago. This treaty would give control of all the oceans and the riches at the bottom of the sea to a UN organization, set up a world court to decide disputes, and have the power to impose taxes on us. We cannot allow the elites to push the United States into a North American Union modeled on the European Union because that is a terrible threat to the continued independence of the U.S.A. The globalists are running away from the term North American Union, but they are frank in calling their goal "economic integration" and "labor mobility" — and that means open borders for cheap labor. "Economic integration" is already taking place in allowing Mexican trucks access to all our highways, in the TransTexas Highway that is planned to grow into a NAFTA Superhighway, and in Bush's Totalization plan to put illegal aliens in Social Security. Our schools must not teach our youngsters to become "citizens of the world."
  4. Protection of American Workers. We must stop the changes in our Patent law that benefit foreign countries at the expense of American inventors, the trade agreements that pretend to promote free trade but actually are a cover for the outsourcing of good American jobs, the insourcing of foreigners to take jobs away from Americans, the foreign countries' discrimination against U.S. products with their Value Added Tax, and foreign countries' shipments to us of foods and prescription drugs that contain poisons.
  5. Life, Marriage, and Traditional Morality. The pro-life plank in the Republican Platform is essential both to the pro-life movement and to Republican victories. The Republican Party cannot win without the support of its pro-life constituency. Marriage amendments will be on the ballot in California and Florida this year, and Americans must make sure they win. The overwhelming majority of Americans support the retention of marriage in its traditional definition of the union of one man and one woman.

Strong words about the need for grassroots action came even from an establishment Republican, former Republican National Chairman and now Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. He told the Republican National Committee at its January 2008 winter meeting, "We've become a top-down party. . . . We have to become a bottom-up party again. . . . This is the year we have to maximize grassroots participation."

Ronald Reagan said that God's hand is on America in a very preferential way. We have inherited a wonderful land of liberty and prosperity. It's our duty to safeguard our magnificent heritage. One way we do this is by adopting a Republican Party Platform that designs the plan to rebuild the conservative movement, sets the standard for public officials, and then tries to hold them to it. We must use the procedures in the U.S. Constitution, and the mechanisms of self-government and of party politics to preserve our heritage.

It's up to grassroots Americans to rebuild the conservative movement and take back the Republican Party from the RINOs (as we did in 1964 and 1980).


Monday, March 31, 2008

Let's Hear It For The GOP!


By Pastor Chuck Baldwin


I think it is time that we all stood up and gave the Republican Party a big round of applause. I mean, they have done us all a huge favor. By an overwhelming majority, the GOP has prevented a potential plague from enveloping these United States of America, and I think it is time that we acknowledged it. Yes, the GOP stopped a potential catastrophe. Without the combined efforts of millions of Republicans, there is no telling what kind of disaster might have ensued. Let’s hear it for the GOP! Hip Hip Hooray!

For a few minutes there, I thought the GOP might have lost its mind, but I am glad to report that all is well with the Republican Party. The international bankers and oil companies, and the military-industrial complex, as well as the presidents of Mexico and Canada, can breathe easy. With John McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee, the globalist power brokers who have dominated the last three Presidential administrations can know that they are still in charge. There will be no changing of the guard this November.

It was scary there for a while. You see, there was this kook who was running for the Republican nomination that had the potential to upset the applecart real good. But thankfully, the fine people within the GOP rose to the occasion and beat back the attempts of his nutty supporters to vault him to the nomination.

After all, just think what would have taken place if this kook Ron Paul had won the Republican nomination for President. This nut case actually believes that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Imagine that. That means he would never take America to war except with a Declaration of War by Congress. Think how such a thing would prevent America’s meddling and interventionism worldwide. Think of the billions and even trillions of tax dollars that would not need to be spent overseas. Think of how much money Halliburton would lose. Think of how much money the Federal Reserve bankers would lose by not being able to loan money to the U.S. government. It is too ghastly to think about.

Furthermore, this Ron Paul nut might have actually insisted that the federal government declare unborn babies to be “persons” under the law. Think of it. This would mean that every unborn baby would have the immediate protection of law. And this would have happened without the necessity of appointing a single Supreme Court justice. Whew! The Republican Party dodged a bullet on that one. Now they can continue to talk about being “pro-life” for the next thirty years in order to fool Christian conservatives into voting for them without having to actually do anything about it.

This Ron Paul kook would also have put a stop to the incessant spying on the American people by their own federal government. Egad! This Paul character would have set America back two hundred years. Think of it. No more illegal wiretaps. No more reading private emails, letters, and telegrams. No more harassment by the BATFE of law-abiding firearms dealers for honest errors in paperwork. No more using the wars on “terror” and “drugs” to violate the Fourth Amendment. Think of the money that would be lost by the feds not confiscating the private property of the American people.

In addition, if this Ron Paul nut had actually become President, he might have succeeded in abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and overturning the Sixteenth Amendment. Holy Horrors! Can you imagine the tragedy that would have ensued? No more income taxes. No more tax forms to fill out. No more IRS agents arresting hard-working citizens for “tax evasion.” No more government tracking of our private financial transactions. Think of the US attorneys whose services would no longer be necessary. Imagine that. The federal government would actually be required to live within its means; it could no longer raise taxes, because there would be no more taxes to raise.

And if all of the above is not bad enough, this Ron Paul kook would actually demand that the federal government obey the Tenth Amendment. This, all by itself, would reduce the size and scope of the federal government by at least fifty percent. Imagine if the American people suddenly had the federal government out of their pocketbooks and off their backs? What would they do with all that newfound freedom? It is too scary to contemplate.

Do not worry, however. Thanks to the fine men and women of the Republican Party, John McCain will carry their standard into the November elections. Yes, my dear friends, David Rockefeller and his fellow travelers at the Council on Foreign Relations can rest easy. Should McCain win the general election, they will retain their influence in the White House. Indeed, we can all rest easier knowing that John McCain will be the Republican nominee for President.

After all, John McCain will see to it that our borders and ports remain open to illegal aliens. In fact, a McCain Presidency will ensure that illegal aliens become permanent U.S. citizens. Or better yet, that the U.S. and Mexico will be merged into a North American Community, thus eliminating the need for U.S. citizenship altogether. This will greatly help the Chamber of Commerce and Big Business. Think of the money they can save by hiring cheap Mexican labor. Think of the plants and factories that can be moved to Mexico. Think of the cheap Chinese goods that can be loaded onto Mexican trucks from Mexican ports and shipped into the United States on the NAFTA superhighways.

And did I mention the advantage a John McCain Presidency will provide to incumbents in future elections? Because John McCain does not believe in the U.S. Constitution, the First Amendment means nothing to him. This is good, because he can use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to promote his McCain/Feingold bill that would make it illegal for citizens to voice their concerns and opinions regarding the voting records of incumbents during a general election. That means those sinister organizations such as the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America will no longer be able to publicly promote their views regarding the anti-Second Amendment voting records of congressmen and senators.

That Ron Paul kook would never have tolerated such a law as McCain/Feingold. But thanks to the fine men and women of the Republican Party, we do not need to worry about these little inconveniences such as the First and Second Amendments (or any of the other articles within the Bill of Rights, for that matter), because they wisely selected John McCain to be their standard-bearer.

Furthermore, because the good men and women of the GOP decided to nominate John McCain, we can look forward to one hundred years of war in the Middle East. We can all anticipate the opportunity of sending our troops into harm’s way all over the world to promote the interests of international corporations, nation-building, and other U.N. machinations.

Had that nut Ron Paul been elected, he would have practiced a non-interventionist foreign policy. He would have sought peace with all nations. And, instead of preemptively invading foreign countries, he would have dealt constitutionally with terrorists, resulting in their capture or death, the protection of America, the absence of long-term war, and the respect of nations throughout the world. Furthermore, that nut Paul would have refused to use U.S. forces to do the bidding of the United Nations and other international entities.

However, we do not need to worry about old-fashioned, out-of-date ideas such as constitutional government, conservative principles, or common sense, because the fine men and women of the Republican Party wisely chose John McCain as their presumptive Presidential nominee. Yes, indeed. Let’s hear it for the GOP!


Chuck Baldwin is Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. In 1985 the church was recognized by President Ronald Reagan for its unusual growth and influence.

Dr. Baldwin is the host of a lively, hard-hitting syndicated radio talk show on the Genesis Communications Network called, “Chuck Baldwin Live” This is a daily, one hour long call-in show in which Dr. Baldwin addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view. Pastor Baldwin writes weekly articles on the internet [1]
http://www.ChuckBaldwinLive.com and newspapers.


Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Pat Buchanan: An American Prophet

A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house.

I am convinced that in fifty years Americans will look back on Pat Buchanan as a prophetic voice and patriot who could have saved America had we the wisdom to listen to him -- that is, if those dedicated to the U.S. Constitution are still in a position to write our history.


The Scramble for America

By Patrick J. Buchanan


What is it that distinguishes Bush Republicanism from the Coolidge, Taft, Eisenhower and Reagan varieties? Four major issues come to mind.

Bush is a "Big Government conservative" who repudiated the "government is the problem" philosophy of Reagan. His No Child Left Behind program, doubling the size of the Department of Education, and his vast expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs so testify.

Second, Bush believes in Wilsonian interventionism, including the use of military force, to advance a "global democratic revolution" and "end tyranny on earth."

Third, Bush believes in open borders, amnesty and "a path to citizenship" for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens, and smoothing the way for untold millions more to come and "do the work Americans will not do."

Fourth, Bush is a NAFTA-CAFTA man who believes in throwing America's doors open to goods from all over the world, regardless of the protectionist practices of our trade partners. To Bush, free trade is an article of faith and faithful observance its own reward.

For seven years now, consistent with these beliefs, Bush has crafted national policy to conform to his convictions. Thus, any verdict on the Bush presidency must also render judgment upon his philosophy.

With his own and his party's approval at the lowest levels since Watergate, one may conclude then that America is not only rejecting Bush the man and his record, but the philosophy behind both.

This should be a matter of grave concern to a Republican Party that has lately embraced all four pillars of the Bush-Republican philosophy.

For consider the fruits.

Interventionism gave us Iraq, the worst strategic blunder in U.S. history. Big Government conservatism wiped out the surplus, fattened the federal bureaucracy and enlarged its share of GDP, and destroyed the Republican reputation as America's bastion of fiscal prudence.

The Bush immigration philosophy was repudiated by Middle America, which rose in righteous wrath against his amnesty plan and demanded he enforce the law and secure the border. Americans are unreconciled to the idea that the America they grew up in will be morphed into some mammoth multicultural Mall of Mankind.

Now, the returns have come in from the Bush policy of free-trade globalism. According to a lead story in The Wall Street Journal -- whose editorial page still champions Iraq, the Bush Doctrine, open borders, NAFTA-CAFTA and the WTO --- Republicans, by two to one, believe free trade has done more harm than good to America.

"With voters provoked for years by such figures as Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot," writes the Journal's John Harwood, citing Romney adviser and former Rep. Vin Weber, "there's been a steady erosion in Republican support for free trade."

While one appreciates Harwood's compliment, it is undeserved. What killed the free-trade consensus in the GOP was not provocateurs, but proven failure.

Since 2002, America has run five consecutive world record trade deficits. Three million manufacturing jobs have disappeared. The euro has almost doubled in value against the dollar. The Canadian dollar has reached parity. Plants have been shutting down across this country for years. The wages of Middle Americans have stagnated. The trade deficit with China last year reached $233 billion, a world record between any two nations.

Where Alexander Hamilton's economic patriotism, pursued by Washington, Madison, Clay, Jackson, Lincoln, McKinley, T.R. and Coolidge, created the greatest manufacturing power the world had ever seen, producing 42 percent of all of the world's goods when Silent Cal went home, America's industrial plant has been ravaged by free trade.

And we are only beginning to see the damage done by the "trade-deficits-don't-matter!" Republicans.

The trade deficits America has run up in recent decades have helped give rival nations $5 trillion in cash reserves. They have now begun to transfer this enormous cash hoard into sovereign wealth funds -- to buy up America.

China, with currency reserves estimated at $1.3 trillion, used petty cash -- one-fourth of 1 percent of its cash pile in May -- to buy a 10 percent interest in Blackstone, America's second largest private equity firm.

Huawei Technologies, a firm linked to the Chinese military, now seeks a merger with 3Com, a company that provides the Pentagon and U.S. Army with intrusion detection equipment to keep hackers out. In July, Chinese military hackers were discovered trying to break into a computer system close to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Treasury should veto Huawei's bid, even if Goldman Sachs, which claims one alumnus as treasury secretary and another as White House chief of staff, has been greasing the deal.

Yet this is not the end -- this is only the first of the foreign raids on vital U.S. assets.

At the 1884 Congress of Berlin that carved up the continent, "The Scramble for Africa" began. The Scramble for America, thanks to our trillions in borrowing to finance consumption of foreign goods, is about to begin. Because of the free-trade folly of this generation, foreigners, not all of them friendly, are about to buy up our inheritance.

They are about to buy up America.

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of "The Death of the West," "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

"It Was Cynical Politics, And It Backfired"


The following reflection by Pat Buchanan on the departure of "Bush's brain," Karl Rove, is the best summary I have read on the "cynical politics," tragedy and failure of the Bush Administration. It is a poignant reminder that we cannot afford to settle or compromise on the person we choose for the Presidency in 2008. The fate of this nation depends on that decision, and greatness will be required to put things right.

Architectural Failure
by


If one had to sum up the legacy of Karl Rove as political adviser to the 43rd president, it could probably be done in four words: tactical brilliance, strategic blindness.

Though George Bush was not given the natural gifts of a Ronald Reagan, his victories in Texas, followed by successive victories in the presidential contests of 2000 and 2004, put him in the history books alongside Reagan, who won California and the presidency twice.

None of Bush's wins were nearly so impressive as the Reagan landslides in the Golden State and the nation. But it is a testament to Rove that he and Bush never lost a statewide or national election in the four they contested from 1994 to 2004. Rove has two Super Bowl rings. How many political advisers can say as much?

But if Rove's contribution to the career of George Bush will put him in the Hall of Fame, the Bush-Rove legacy for their party is worse than mixed. Rove wanted to be the architect of a new Republican majority. Instead, he and Bush presided over the loss of the Reagan Democrats and both houses of Congress.

The house Nixon and Reagan built, Bush and Rove tore down, leaving rubble in its place. Rove's failure was a failure of vision. He and Bush believed the future of the party lay in adding to the Republican base the Hispanic vote, now the nation's largest minority, approaching 15 percent of the population.

They went about it the wrong way.

Pandering to that voting bloc, Bush stopped enforcing the immigration laws and offered amnesty to 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and the businesses that hired them. Bush and Rove were going to lure the Hispanic vote away from the Democratic Party by putting illegals on a path to citizenship.

But as we saw in June, when the nation rose up in rage against the Bush amnesty, the pair did indeed unite the GOP -- against themselves, and they severed themselves from the Reagan Democrats and the country.

It was cynical politics, and it backfired, crippling the presidential candidacy of John McCain in the process.

But even before the disastrous immigration reform bill, Bush had become a zealot of NAFTA, GATT and most-favored-nation status for China. These have left his country with the worst trade deficits in history, put the United States $2 trillion in debt to Beijing and Tokyo, cost Middle America 3 million manufacturing jobs and arrested the income rise of the middle class, as our capitalist pigs and hedge-fund hogs have happily gorged themselves at the capital gains tax trough.

Bush's original idea of "compassionate conservatism" was a fine one. But under him and Rove, compassionate conservative turned out to be code for a cocktail of Great Society Liberalism and Big Government Conservatism. How could professed admirers of Ronald Reagan think that by doubling the budget of the Department of Education the tests scores of school kids would inexorably rise?

Even earlier in the Bush years, the president, after the trauma of 9-11, had a Damascene conversion to neoconservatism, a neo-Wilsonian ideology and secular religion. Among its tenets: that we are a providential nation whose mission on earth is to liberate mankind and democratize the planet; that we are in a world-historic struggle between good and evil; that our triumph is to be accomplished by the robust use of American military power -- beginning with the benighted nations of the Islamic Middle East that represent an existential threat to America, democracy and Israel.

Sometime between Sept. 11 and his axis-of-evil address, Bush sat down and ate of the forbidden fruit of messianic globaloney. Consuming it, he got up and committed the greatest strategic blunder in American history by ordering the invasion of a country that had not attacked us, did not threaten us and did not want war with us.

The Bush-Rove rationale: For our survival, we had to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction that we now know it did not have.

The great political architects of the 20th century are FDR and Richard Nixon. After the three Republican landslides of the 1920s, FDR put together a New Deal coalition that controlled the White House for 36 years, with the exception of two terms for Gen. Eisenhower.

After the rout of the Republicans in 1964, Nixon pulled together a New Majority that held the White House for 20 of 24 years, racking up two 49-state landslides for Nixon and Reagan, even as FDR had won 46 states in 1936. In his re-election bid, Bush won 31 states.

In seeking a new GOP majority, Bush and Rove rejected the Nixon-Reagan model. Instead, they embraced the interventionism of Wilson, the free-trade globalism of FDR, the open-borders immigration ideas of LBJ and the budget priorities of the Great Society. It was a bridge too far for the party base.

Now, Rove walks away like some subprime borrower abandoning the house on which he can no longer make the payments. The Republican Party needs a new architect. The firm of Bush & Rove was not up to the job.

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and
author of "The Death of the West,"
"The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."