Disingenuous much, Rupert?

An old adage intones, "Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it."

Rupert Murdoch is signaling displeasure with Team Elephant's choice of Presidential candidate.

To hear Rupert Murdoch tell it lately, Mitt Romney lacks stomach and heart. He “seems to play everything safe.” And he is not nearly as tough as he needs to be on President Obama.

Mr. Murdoch’s thoughts on the Republican presidential candidate’s prospects? “Tough O Chicago pros will be hard to beat unless he drops old friends from the team.” Chances of that? “Doubtful,” he tapped out in a Twitter message from his iPad last weekend.

Then, on Thursday, Mr. Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, published a blistering editorial criticizing Mr. Romney’s campaign, accusing it of being hapless and looking “confused in addition to being politically dumb.”

Mr. Murdoch has never been particularly impressed with Mr. Romney, friends and associates of both men say. The two times Mr. Romney visited the editorial board of The Journal, Mr. Murdoch did not work very hard to conceal his lack of excitement. “There was zero enthusiasm, no engagement,” said one Journal staff member who was at the most recent meeting in December.

You'll pardon me if I pause here to soak in the schadenfreude.

You see, it was Murdoch's Fox News that has served as the leading cheerleaders for Romney for the past year. It was Murdoch's Fox News that declared Romney the front-runner well before the primaries started and continued to label him the front-runner through the early primaries notwithstanding the obvious lackluster response to him from the electorate. It was Murdoch's Fox News who declared Il Dilettante the only candidate who could defeat Obama. And it was Murdoch's Fox News that served, effectively, as Romney's unpaid propaganda machine.

NOW Rupert decides he isn't that into Romney? NOW?!?!?!?!?

You created this situation, Rupert. You can like it, or, like the rest of us, you can lump it.

But don't try to sell us your belated regrets now. Anyone who has been paying attention ain't buying it.

Response to friendly taunting

A little over a week ago I noticed that The Modern Pharisee had resumed blogging. In his post The Lesser of Three Evils, he essentially laid out the case that Ron Paul supporters owed it to themselves and their country to choke back their bile and disgust and vote for "the best conservative candidate on the ballot" this Fall, citing the experience of King David.

In The Pharisee's view, David chose "the lesser of three evils" when given a choice.

While I was reading the post, a paraphrase of Carly Simon's 1970s hit song You're So Vain kept running through my head. "You're so vain. You probably think this post is about you, don't you, don't you, don't you?"

Well, uh, yeah. I did think that post was about me. Hugh and I have had that particular discussion before. But whether or not it was vanity became irrelevant when I received this Google message from Hugh.

Hugh: I'm back to blogging, and this is for you (and a few others)

http://hughmcbryde.blogspot.com/2012/04/lesser-of-three-evils.html.

That got a smile out of me. Okay, taunt accepted. Now it's my turn.

I like your analogy. But it's a bit flawed (sorry, Hugh). David was forced to choose between three horrible punishments, while we may choose between three options that, while not pleasant, are certainly NOT horrible punishments. David's three choices were (a) seven years of famine, (b) fleeing his enemies for three months, or (c) three days of pestilence. Our three choices are (a) vote for the incumbent Corporatist thug, Il Duce, (b) vote for the winner of the Republican primaries Corporatist dilettante hand-chosen by the Team Elephant elites, or (c) stay home and flip 'em both the bird. In our case, choice (c) is not only no punishment, but satisfying, in a juvenile sort of way.

Hugh's analogy further breaks down. David did NOT choose the punishment that befell his people. He chose one of the three options that he absolutely did not want to occur. He left the final decision up to the Lord.

I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.

One way or another, in our situation, we have to choose (a), (b), or (c).

We know that choice (a) is out of the question. Il Duce incorporates all of the worst traits of horrendous presidents of the past, including thug Woodrow Wilson, messianic Franklin Roosevelt, "Great Society" Lyndon Johnson, and bumbling Jimmy Carter. But is choice (b) really that much better? Sure, Il Dilettante has great, presidential hair. But he's flip-flopped on every major issue over the past 20 years. If he's a conservative, then I'm Conrad Hilton. The elites moved heaven and earth -- including turning Fox News into the official Romney for President communications organ -- to push Romney through. Why so much effort? It's because...wait for it...NOBODY (and I mean NOBODY) wants him. Okay, Ann Coulter wants him. She can have him.

Choice (c) looks better and better to me all the time. I've already stated that this country is too far gone for any single individual operating as President to fix it.

Four years ago I reacted angrily when The Hausfraurer said that he would no longer vote, because, by voting, he was lending legitimacy to this phony, Corporatist system. Four years later, I completely agree with him.

The game is rigged. There isn't a dime's bit of difference between the "two" candidates. They both love big government; they only disagree when it comes to how big and who pays.

Sign me up for choice (c).

Is there a cure for blogger ennui?

It's been two months since my last, half-hearted post on this blog. I'm sure some of the dozen or so regular followers of this blog have been wondering where the hell I've been, why I've been so quiet, and why, with so much going on in the world, I haven't stuck my opinionated viewpoint into the middle of the goings on.

I've been here before. I've blamed it on "no interest in current events". Another time it was "burnout". Still another time I explained it as "inexplicable indifference". Then there was "my give a damn tank is on 'E'".

But I think the first extended period I had with no posts is the time I captured the essence best: "blogger ennui". It's a certain blend of general indifference coupled with the knowledge that one is powerless to do anything about what's going on.

"Take the red pill", they said. "You'll be able to see through the bullshit", they said.

Yeah. See through the bullshit...and see how hopeless any chance of correcting course is. For every person who has had the scales of cultural and political propaganda fall from their eyes so that they see clearly, there are 99 who not only don't see clearly, but are totally happy with the status quo.

Libs love the ever-encroaching socialist dystopia. "Conservatives" love the expansion of the military-industrial complex. "Bomb Iran - killing people makes them love and respect us". Every day freedoms are lost, in the name of the "common good", or "to protect us from" the current boogie man in the cross hairs.

Even if a libertarian were elected President with a libertarian majority in both houses of Congress, we wouldn't be able to fix the mess that is the USSA. Too many people are locked onto the guvmint teat -- both individuals and corporate looters -- to save this sinking ship.

But, hey, let's have a primary election coronation for Mitt Romney, so that we can have "Clinton-Dole" and "Obama-McCommie" redux. Let's pretend like the tea party hasn't been completely co-opted by the Elephants. Let's pretend that Occupy actually means something more than a bunch of spoiled 20-somethings whining that life isn't fair.

If I could still pretend, I'd be blogging. I can't pretend.

I'm not calling it quits. I'm just acknowledging the futility of it all.

New Tizona Post

If you get your news from any American paper that subscribes to the Associated Press feed (such as the Washington Post), you might be thinking right about now that the Team Elephant presidential primaries have resolved into a two-man race: "front runner" Mitt "Presidential Hair" Romney, and Rick "Bomb the shit out of Iran!" Santorum.

Just one problem: it's a complete lie.

Read more at The Tizona Group.

New Tizona Post

And it begins...

The pattern has been played out over and over. A potential Team Elephant presidential candidate starts to rise in the polls. A bulls-eye is affixed to that candidate. A combination of Republican elites, their allies in the punditocracy, and Big Media (the BM for short), which simply can't help itself when an opportunity to dump on a Republican presents itself, begin hammering on any and all perceived defects of said candidate. Next thing you know, the new frontrunner is cast on the scrap heap, either to quit (like Herman Cain) or to flounder haplessly trying to regain momentum (like Michele Bachmann and Governor Perry Gardasil).

Now that Newt Gingrich is dropping faster than shares in Freddie Mac, Ron Paul has surged into a virtual tie and perhaps even the lead in Iowa.

That's bad.

Read the rest at The Tizona Group.

New Tizona Post

This isn't an election we're witnessing. It's a coronation, at least on the Team Elephant side of the ledger.

Why would I call it a coronation? How could I call it a coronation when there is no clear front-runner and the first primary hasn't even occurred yet? Follow along as I read the tea leaves.

Read the rest at The Tizona Group.

New Tizona Post

Romney. *shakes head ruefully*

Yeah, he’s trying to appeal to everybody. He certainly appeals to the Elephant Elitists, who have all but anointed him as The Chosen One. But if you really examine who he is and what he represents, he certainly won’t appeal to YOU.

So-called conservative comments on CPAC

In case you missed it, Ron Paul won the straw poll at CPAC, with Hairdo Healthcare finishing second. The indignity of this result was too much for one of Fox News' legion of Neocons to bear.

The top three winners of this weekend's CPAC straw poll will not win the 2012 presidential nomination. And if any of the top three do break through to prove that prediction wrong, none of them will go on to win the White House in 2012.

This year's top three placeholders in the poll were Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Gary Johnson. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney repeat their standing from the 2010 poll as No. 1 and No. 2, respectively.

If the results of this straw poll do not sufficiently demonstrate the bizarre nature and overall oddity of this year's gathering of "conservatives," nothing else can.

Ron Paul, though technically still a Republican, has given up his GOP identity to embrace the chance to be the poster child for the more libertarian streak that has run rampant through CPAC, largely unabated for the past two years. Mitt Romney, the virtual author of Obamacare, and 2008's third-place finisher for the GOP nomination, is weighed down by the fact that his universal health care mandate in Massachusetts has largely failed – with the exception being the $50 state-subsidized abortions. Gary Johnson was only added to the lineup at the last minute, his presence stoking the flame of immoral libertarianism that actually advocated for legalized pot and the redefinition of marriage to include homosexual unions.

In other words, this year's CPAC wasn't about advancing conservatism. Rather, it exposed the radically disrespectful element of the libertine.

It has been the inclusion of the libertarian aspects of the past two years that has thrown the message of conservatism askew in a widely disproportional way.

It is the libertarian in attendance that produced the free pornographic calendar passed out to attendees in 2010. It is the libertarians in attendance who openly promote the inclusion of groups like GOProud, largely as an attempt to silence groups who would speak in strong support of traditional moral values. It is the libertarian in attendance who slandered President George Bush, by claiming his appreciation for the Constitution was best summed up as a "damn piece of paper." It is the libertarian in attendance that proclaimed the war to prevent terrorists from regathering strength and coming after our homeland as "illegal." And it is the libertarian in attendance that eschewed, booed, cajoled and screamed "war criminal" to Vice President Dick Cheney, a man who served his country with commitment and still attempts to help the world understand the threat of the radical Islamic element devising plans to eliminate us and our allies.

Now the libertarians stuffed the ballot box of the CPAC straw poll, and for the second year in a row made it the laughingstock poll in the eyes of the voters. (This year's voters are perhaps more engaged, more aware and more plugged in than ever before.)

In head-to-head polling going back a full year to last year's CPAC, neither Ron Paul nor Mitt Romney has consistently topped a head-to-head match-up against a greatly weakened President Obama. Romney has only topped the sitting president once in that 12-month period. Gov. Mike Huckabee, a no-show at CPAC for the past years, has beaten the president head-to-head in nearly every poll taken.

David Keene, the American Conservative Union’s outgoing president, gave a lengthy discounting of this year's poll in the lead up to it. That should serve as a very clear indicator that next year's CPAC needs some significant changes if it is to become the great conference it has been in past years.

Libertarians and Conservatives are as different as Libertarians and Liberals. The truth is libertarians are the worst form of political affiliation in the nation. Combining the desire of economic greed, with the amoral desire to promote any behavior regardless of its cost to our culture is a stark departure from the intent of the Founding Fathers.

And it is not consistent with the average conservative voter in America.

Libertine? Legalized pot? Advocating behaviors? Not consistent with the average conservative voter in America? How extraordinarily rich! But my favorite part of his meltdown was this.

Libertarians and Conservatives are as different as Libertarians and Liberals. The truth is libertarians are the worst form of political affiliation in the nation. Combining the desire of economic greed, with the amoral desire to promote any behavior regardless of its cost to our culture is a stark departure from the intent of the Founding Fathers.

Seriously? "Amoral desire to promote any behavior"? Where does this jerk get THAT from? No libertarian is actively promoting ANYTHING except freedom from government.

His whole article is an attack against liberty-loving people everywhere. His thesis is predictable, because it's the Team Elephant establishment and Neocommie platform: war without end, big government in our image, and "you're either with us or against us".

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you're a conservative, Team Elephant is NOT your friend. And Fox News is NOT conservative: it's nothing but the organ of propaganda for the Neocommies.

Il Duce sets a trap

Il Duce gave his State of the Union speech last night. Deadeye watched the speech. I went to bed - 4:30 AM comes early, ya know. She said Il Duce did a good job. Good for him. [/sarcasm]

I read the transcript. It's the best way with these kinds of speeches. It's just so easy to get caught up in the applause lines and rhetorical flourishes otherwise.

The speech was actually quite good. Give credit where credit is due. But he also set a trap for the Republicans, a trap they'd be wise to avoid.

Now, I have heard rumors that a few of you still have concerns about our new health care law. (Laughter.) So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you. We can start right now by correcting a flaw in the legislation that has placed an unnecessary bookkeeping burden on small businesses. (Applause.)

What I'm not willing to do — what I'm not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a preexisting condition. (Applause.)

I'm not willing to tell James Howard, a brain cancer patient from Texas, that his treatment might not be covered. I'm not willing to tell Jim Houser, a small business man from Oregon, that he has to go back to paying $5,000 more to cover his employees. As we speak, this law is making prescription drugs cheaper for seniors and giving uninsured students a chance to stay on their patients' — parents' coverage. (Applause.)

So I say to this chamber tonight, instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let's fix what needs fixing and let's move forward. (Applause.)

Let's fix what needs fixing and let's move forward. Yeah.....

If Team Elephant's so-called leadership falls for this "please don't throw me in the brier patch!" tactic, they deserve the electoral slaughter they'll incur in 2012.

Il Duce is trying to set up a situation where the abortion that is Obamacare becomes associated with Republicans as well as Democrats. If he gives a little here and there but keeps the essential structure of Obamacare intact, he reasons, when people face the nightmare that health care will become, their ire will be bipartisan.

Of course, the RINO leadership in Congress is just stupid enough to fall for this transparent ruse.

I said some time ago that the Tea Party made a gargantuan mistake by not forming a third party or joining forces with one of the existing third parties. When I'm right, I'm right.

The trouble with elephants

I approach this post with a little bit of hesitation.  I don't want to look like I'm picking on a fellow blogger and singling him out as being...how do I say this delicately?...easily duped.  But the posts of this blogger go a long way towards proving a point I've been trying to drum home for some time now.  Please indulge me a little on this one.

The blog to which I refer is called Elephants in the Blue Grass.  Now, I'm sure Mr. "Grass" is a nice enough fellow.  But he needs to cut down on his Kool-Aid intake.

Mr. "Grass" has a real issue with Rand Paul, Ron Paul's son and candidate for the Senate from Kentucky.  I am aware that "Grass" is touting another candidate for Senate, Trey Grayson, who I'm sure is a swell fellow.  And far be it from me to get my panties in a wad because an individual supports a candidate other than the one I would favor.  But I can tell when someone has gone beyond hyping their candidate and "downing" the opponent to a nasty place from which they can only produce hyperventilated girly smear.  You know, the stuff we usually get from Team Donkey.  Thank I'm kidding?  How would YOU characterize his calling Mr. Paul "part of the blame America first crowd."

Mr. "Grass" is quite unhappy with the desire on the part of Mr. Paul (and his dad, I might add) to scale back the mission of the US military to that of....wait for it...defending the nation.  You know, abandoning the Bush doctrine of War Without End.  This causes Mr. "Grass" to lapse into fainting spells. 

He's also just a wee bit butt hurt that Mr. Paul has vowed to vote to repeal the Patriot Act.  Personally, I can think of nothing more patriotic than repeal of the Patriot Act.  But I'm more concerned with personal liberties than in creating an All-Powerful Staat in the image of the Team Elephant Pax Americana pipe dream.

I hate to pick on the guy.  I really do.  He's done nothing to wrong me.  But his wrong-headed jihad against Paul is just baffling.  Rand Paul sounds to me like exactly the kind of guy the Tea Party folks are trying to get elected.  But Mr. "Grass" and the Team Elephant elites are fighting him tooth and nail.

And therein lies my point - the point I've been hammering on like a jackhammer on steroids most of this year.  If you're a person who believes in the principles of the Constitution as written by the Founders, a person who wants to live in the nation they envisioned, you need to leave the Republican party.  Team Elephant is not your friend.  Team Elephant does NOT represent small government, personal liberty, and fiscal responsibility.  They represent intrusive Überwachenden-style snooping, War Without End, and spending til the cows come home...just spending on different stuff than the Donkeys want to spend money on.

A party that thinks Romney-Palin would be a swell ticket for the Presidency is a party in need of euthanasia.  And those who put their faith in such a party need to get used to the idea of serfdom.

Ron Paul as Rodney Dangerfield

I tell ya, he just don't get no respect.

Almost as interesting is that Ron Paul only lost to Romney by a single vote. It looks like the Paulistas continue to infiltrate these GOP conferences and demonstrate outsized influence.
[...]
Maybe it just reflects a fundamental split. A quarter just want someone who can win, a quarter want to completely overhaul the GOP in Paulist direction, and half are split up among various socially conservative long-shots.

Sorry, but no. You're completely wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are, in fact, a number of schizophrenic camps masquerading as Team Elephant.  But the breakdown (and boy do I mean breakdown) is more like this:

• Rockefellerite elitists
• All war, all the time Neocons
• Big government in our image Republicrats
• RINOs
• People who want to blow up the GOP and start over

Everyone from the first four categories hates Ron Paul.  H-A-T-E-S him.  Hates him to the point where they'd vote for a liberal Mormon who advocated a Massachusetts health care debacle before they'd vote for him.  Hates him to the point where they disparage his supporters as Paulistas (like some sort of insurgency) who "skew" the results of their precious straw polls.

But you "conservatives" just go ahead and continue to waste your votes on these creeps.  I'm the crazy one, because I walked away from Team Elephant when I realized that they didn't give a rat's ass about anything but the acquisition and exercise of power.  You know, just like the "bad guys", Team Donkey.

One final note on the SRLC.  Ron Paul upset the assembled Elephants by speaking the truth regarding the economic policies of Il Duce.

Republicans and tea party activists are fond of accusing President Barack Obama of being a socialist, but today party gadfly Ron Paul said they had it wrong.

“In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist,” the Texas Republican said to a smattering of applause at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

“He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Gadfly. There's that "no respect" thing again.

For those of you a little unschooled in economic systems, Corporatism is the official name of Fascism.  Fascism is the name that gained popularity as the description of the Corporatist economic model in the 1920's due to the success (to that point) of the original Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, in making it work.

But Team Elephant would rather Red bait than speak the truth, so Socialism it is.

The case for a third party

There is a particular litmus test I have for whether or not someone is serious about restoring this country to its former state as a Constitutional Republic.  That test is this: are you opposed to the creation of a third party whose purpose is to elect candidates committed to a return to the Constitutional rule of law?  If the answer is "no", then you've shown yourself to be yet another duped sheeple drinking that Team Elephant Kool-Aid.  I cannot in good conscience take you seriously.

Many blathering heads take umbrage with my stubborn insistence that the current political parties are totally co-opted and cannot be reclaimed.  They quote Ronald Reagan, who said, waaaay back in 1977:

I have to say I cannot agree with some of my friends—perhaps including some of you here tonight—who have answered that question by saying this nation needs a new political party.

I respect that view and I know that those who have reached it have done so after long hours of study. But I believe that political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved. For one thing, the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over.

Rather than a third party, we can have a new first party made up of people who share our principles. I have said before that if a formal change in name proves desirable, then so be it. But tonight, for purpose of discussion, I’m going to refer to it simply as the New Republican Party.

At this point they follow up with a rather childish, "See? See? The great Ronald Reagan said it! We need to stay Republican and save the Party."

There's only one problem with that illogic: Reagan failed.

For all of the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan as President, he was unsuccessful in his quest to fundamentally change the character of the Party.  Look at the last four candidates for President in the post-Reagan era:

• George H. W. Bush, Rockefellerite
  


• Bob Dole, Big Government true believer
  


• George W. Bush, Neocon
  


• John McCommie, RINO
  

That's not the slate of candidates a party espousing individual liberty and small government foists upon its followers.

"But Vulture!  The Republicans have changed!  They've really changed going in the 2010 elections".

No, no they haven't.  They haven't changed one bit.  You know how I know that?

• Michael Steele is still the RNC chairman
  


• John McCommie is being pushed by Party elites over J. D. Hayworth because he's "more electable"
  


• Party elites are still pushing for Mitt Romney to be the standard-bearer in 2012
  

Here's the rub.  We know that Team Donkey wants power to implement their vision of Big Government.  But the same is true of Team Elephant - they want power to implement their vision of Big Government.  Neither gives a rat's ass about you or your personal freedoms.

A strong third party will offer a chance for real change in Washington, if done correctly.  It can be a haven for small-L libertarians, small government conservatives, and independents, as well as for current members of Team Donkey fed up with the Fascist takeover of their party by the toxic 60's generation.

Perhaps even more import is the impact it would have on the two big Parties.  Both would be forced to move from their current entrenched positions - either further to the Left or drawing back to the Right - in order to attract voters away from the new party.  For the first time since Reagan, libertarians and conservatives wouldn't have to hold their noses to vote.  That alone is reason enough for me.

Think I'm full of it?  Hit me with your best shot.  I'm dying to see where you think I'm "wrong".

CPAC shocker

Will wonders never cease? The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) presidential straw poll wasn't won by that phony Mitt Romney. It wasn't won by that phony Mike Huckabee. It wasn't even won by whiny "you hurt my feelings talking about retards" Sarah Palin. It was won by the man himself.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a stalwart foe of government spending, won a blowout victory Saturday in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll.

With participants naming "reducing the size of federal government" as their top issue, the 74-year old libertarian hero captured 31 percent of the 2,400 votes cast in the annual contest, usually seen as a barometer of how the GOP's conservative wing regards their potential presidential candidates.

Right on Dr. Paul! And right on Young Conservatives.

Paul's victory might be seen, in part, as a result of his support among anti-establishment Tea Party activists -- who turned out in force at this year's conference and expressed some frustration with the Republican Party.

Reflecting the college atmosphere of the annual event, young people dominated the voting: 54 percent of participants were between the ages of 18 and 25.

It seems that the generation that will get stuck with the bill for government's profligacy wants its voice heard.

Team Elephant's neocommie wing had a beef with the poll results.

The announcement of Paul's win, a surprise victory unlikely to have a major impact on the 2012 presidential contest, drew a volley of loud boos from the CPAC audience.

"How dare those impudent curs vote against our platform of fascism (albeit implemented more slowly than it has been by Il Duce) and war without end!"

Two positive things or one negative thing can come out of this straw poll. Guess which I'm betting will happen?

• More and more mainstream Elephants will get behind Ron Paul and his vision of a return to Constitutional government.
  


• The Rockefeller wing of Team Elephant will kick and scream and fight, driving the Tea Party wing to split and form a third party with Dr. Paul as its standard bearer.
  


• The Rockefeller wing of Team Elephant will rig the next straw poll to favor a candidate more to the liking of the oligarchical elite that has run the party since...well, for as long as I can remember.

Team Elephant hasn't got the brains to see the writing on the wall. They will once again buck the will of the party faithful in favor of the party elite and push forward with their stubborn neo-commie agenda and slate of bland, phony-baloney candidates. They're too stubborn and too stupid to realize the gift that Il Duce has laid in their laps that could lead to them dominating the political scene for generations if they'd only listen and act accordingly.

Expect Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee in 2012. Trust me on this one.