I applaud House Speaker John Boehner for his letter to President Barack Obama on Russia. I also applaud him for holding fire on Obama while he was abroad at an important security summit. It much more clearly articulated Obama’s shocking behavior with respect to Russia than any other criticism to date: The Russian government has not lived up to its obligations to support the world | Read More »
So, I confess, I had to look up who Luther Campbell was, aside from a guy who came in fourth in a race for county mayor in Miami-Dade County. He was a somewhat high-profile music promoter, fronting for groups like 2 Live Crew. But it is his electoral experience, as described in his column in the Miami New Times, that draws our attention today. He | Read More »
Today, the New York Times has an editorial attacking so-called voter ID bills. According to Democratic and New York Times (but I repeat myself) mythmaking, voter ID is a racist Republican scheme to stop minorities and Democrats from voting: Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to | Read More »
On Monday, the Conservative Party of Canada took its first majority in its history. This was a victory on several levels. First, after a disastrous 1993 election in which the Progressive Conservative party was reduced to two seats after its base split off in the west into the Reform Party and rise of the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec. Now a reconstituted Conservative Party (note the | Read More »
Big Government and Election Journal have a great new resource for fighting voter fraud: a free iPhone app. From them:
Brought to you by ElectionJournal.org, the website that broke the Black Panther intimidation story in 2008. iReport is the first i…
The “Young Guns” have a book. They also have a promotion tour and a video. Now, the Democrats could engage in a battle of ideas. But that’s not what they do. (are you surprised?)
Instead the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee…
Over the past 72 hours, the online left has collectively ripped into Carly Fiorina for an ad that shines a spotlight on Barbara Boxer’s assertion that “One of the very important national security issues we face, frankly, is climate change.&#…
I have argued for a while that Repubicans need to pick up the mantle of transparency. It is useful tactically and strategically. On the tactical level, the guys in leadership always play “hide the ball with what they are doing”. This gives Republicans a morally secure high-ground to attack whatever the Democrats do. Strategically, it gives us an issue that can both rally our base and makes good sense to independents and many Democrats.
On Friday, House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement on transparency. The key passage:
It’s just common sense: Americans should be allowed to read the text of major bills before Congress votes on them. Previous Congresses, including Republican ones, failed to live up to this standard. But never before has the failure been as blatant as it has been in the past nine months under Speaker Pelosi. Things have to change.
There are two key parts to this. First, he grabbed the policy issue and framed it in the adult and serious way “Americans” (not “Members of Congress”, which seems like only a populist argument, although some in the media have grabbed the straw man to give the Democrats aircover) should know what Congress is doing so that we can hold them accountable.
The second part is, perhaps, more important. John Boehner has now explicitly rejected the way that he ran the House, said “we have learned”, and established a new line in the sand. Furthermore, one of the reforms that he advocates, in this case, a waiting period before legislation can be acted on, actually may impact many of the wasteful spending concerns that actually helped drive him out of office.
What is so fascinating is the rejection by Senate Democrats and the silence of lefty advocacy groups other than the Sunlight Foundation. In an effort to get a public copy of the healthcare bill before a vote, John Kerry said:
“This is fundamentally a delay tactic,” the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate said. “I mean, let’s be honest about it. The legislative language, everybody knows, is relatively arcane, legalistic, and most people don’t read the legislative language.”
That’s right. But people who are interested do. People who are experts or people being impacted do, or they hire people to.
And this gets to the final point. Where is the press? Huffington Post is being sent around by Demcorats, because they are giving cover to Democrats. But they aren’t really press. But where is the Fourth Estate demanding that they have the information to tell the American people what the debate is about.
Crickets.
You would think that John Boehner repudiating how Republicans ran the House would be worthy of news.
Crickets.
You would think that John Kerry giving cover to the Senate acting without even having legislation (I’m not talking about reading the bill here …) would be newsworthy.
Crickets outside of Fox and the Washington Times.
I have argued for a while that Repubicans need to pick up the mantle of transparency. It is useful tactically and strategically. On the tactical level, the guys in leadership always play “hide the ball with what they are doing”. This gives Republicans a morally secure high-ground to attack whatever the Democrats do. Strategically, it gives us an issue that can both rally our base and makes good sense to independents and many Democrats.
On Friday, House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement on transparency. The key passage:
It’s just common sense: Americans should be allowed to read the text of major bills before Congress votes on them. Previous Congresses, including Republican ones, failed to live up to this standard. But never before has the failure been as blatant as it has been in the past nine months under Speaker Pelosi. Things have to change.
There are two key parts to this. First, he grabbed the policy issue and framed it in the adult and serious way “Americans” (not “Members of Congress”, which seems like only a populist argument, although some in the media have grabbed the straw man to give the Democrats aircover) should know what Congress is doing so that we can hold them accountable.
The second part is, perhaps, more important. John Boehner has now explicitly rejected the way that he ran the House, said “we have learned”, and established a new line in the sand. Furthermore, one of the reforms that he advocates, in this case, a waiting period before legislation can be acted on, actually may impact many of the wasteful spending concerns that actually helped drive him out of office.
What is so fascinating is the rejection by Senate Democrats and the silence of lefty advocacy groups other than the Sunlight Foundation. In an effort to get a public copy of the healthcare bill before a vote, John Kerry said:
“This is fundamentally a delay tactic,” the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate said. “I mean, let’s be honest about it. The legislative language, everybody knows, is relatively arcane, legalistic, and most people don’t read the legislative language.”
That’s right. But people who are interested do. People who are experts or people being impacted do, or they hire people to.
And this gets to the final point. Where is the press? Huffington Post is being sent around by Demcorats, because they are giving cover to Democrats. But they aren’t really press. But where is the Fourth Estate demanding that they have the information to tell the American people what the debate is about.
Crickets.
You would think that John Boehner repudiating how Republicans ran the House would be worthy of news.
Crickets.
You would think that John Kerry giving cover to the Senate acting without even having legislation (I’m not talking about reading the bill here …) would be newsworthy.
Crickets outside of Fox and the Washington Times.
I have argued for a while that Repubicans need to pick up the mantle of transparency. It is useful tactically and strategically. On the tactical level, the guys in leadership always play “hide the ball with what they are doing”. This gives Republicans a morally secure high-ground to attack whatever the Democrats do. Strategically, it gives us an issue that can both rally our base and makes good sense to independents and many Democrats.
On Friday, House Republican Leader John Boehner issued a statement on transparency. The key passage:
It’s just common sense: Americans should be allowed to read the text of major bills before Congress votes on them. Previous Congresses, including Republican ones, failed to live up to this standard. But never before has the failure been as blatant as it has been in the past nine months under Speaker Pelosi. Things have to change.
There are two key parts to this. First, he grabbed the policy issue and framed it in the adult and serious way “Americans” (not “Members of Congress”, which seems like only a populist argument, although some in the media have grabbed the straw man to give the Democrats aircover) should know what Congress is doing so that we can hold them accountable.
The second part is, perhaps, more important. John Boehner has now explicitly rejected the way that he ran the House, said “we have learned”, and established a new line in the sand. Furthermore, one of the reforms that he advocates, in this case, a waiting period before legislation can be acted on, actually may impact many of the wasteful spending concerns that actually helped drive him out of office.
What is so fascinating is the rejection by Senate Democrats and the silence of lefty advocacy groups other than the Sunlight Foundation. In an effort to get a public copy of the healthcare bill before a vote, John Kerry said:
“This is fundamentally a delay tactic,” the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate said. “I mean, let’s be honest about it. The legislative language, everybody knows, is relatively arcane, legalistic, and most people don’t read the legislative language.”
That’s right. But people who are interested do. People who are experts or people being impacted do, or they hire people to.
And this gets to the final point. Where is the press? Huffington Post is being sent around by Demcorats, because they are giving cover to Democrats. But they aren’t really press. But where is the Fourth Estate demanding that they have the information to tell the American people what the debate is about.
Crickets.
You would think that John Boehner repudiating how Republicans ran the House would be worthy of news.
Crickets.
You would think that John Kerry giving cover to the Senate acting without even having legislation (I’m not talking about reading the bill here …) would be newsworthy.
Crickets outside of Fox and the Washington Times.