Virginia’s Spanberger gets it wrong; Hegseth gets is right

March 17, 2026

Virginia is turning into a very different place since the election. The Youngkin-Sears administration had done a good job. Glen Youngkin and Winsome Sears brought $121 billion in committed private sector investments, had 270,000 more Virginians working, and nearly 200,000 open and unfilled jobs. They also had 4 straight years of record budget surpluses. All of these good things were the result of conservative pro-growth and pro-worker policies.

The new Governor, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, seems to be a student of New York City’s Muslim Communist Mayor, Zohran Mamdani. While claiming to be a moderate, she supported President Joe Biden’s reckless spending, and his inflationary and job-killing regulations. Now, she wants to bring that same failed economic agenda to Virginia.

She also opposes Virginia’s right-to-work law. This helps union bosses force workers to join a union just to get a job. That threatens the business climate that has made Virginia a location for private investment and job creation.

She claimed to want to increase affordability for Virginians, but has turned her back on her promises and supports placing taxes on virtually everything. 

That list of tax additions includes: Additional local sales tax in all Virginia counties and cities; new personal property tax on electric leaf blowers and electric landscaping equipment; taxes on large employers; gun and ammunition taxes; new income tax brackets; a delivery tax for Northern Virginia; an investment income tax; an event tax; a storage facility tax; a gym membership tax; dog walking and dog grooming taxes; a counseling tax; a digital personal property tax; new car taxes and highway use fees; a vehicle repair tax; a home repair tax; a dry cleaning tax; a rideshare tax; and a fantasy sports tax.

How is that affordability promise looking for you?

Spanberger is following the disastrous lead of California and New York City. Small businesses, working families and anyone who believes in free enterprise will suffer under her governorship.

As bad as all of those are, as well as some other reckless policies, she also wants to change the voting districts. But the goal is for immediate results, not fairness. This is an especially interesting issue, because she has been seen on video criticizing what she now professes. She said not long ago, “Gerrymandering is detrimental to our democracy and it weakens the individual voices that form our electorates. Opposing gerrymandering should be a bipartisan priority.”

She supports an item on the April 21 ballot that would put an amendment on the November ballot allowing state lawmakers to redraw the congressional district map at will. Normally, redistricting occurs every 10 years following the census, not when a legislature makes a partisan decision to change it. 

All Virginians who believe in honesty and fair elections are strongly encouraged to vote “No” on this issue.

And Congressional Democrats and others are busy with their war on all things Trump.

The effort to forever end Iran’s years of killing Americans and its efforts to become a nuclear power are atop the list. One specific criticism of the Department of War is what they say is the unnecessary spending of millions by Secretary Pete Hegseth on fancy foods for our military.

"Hegseth spent $93 billion in one month – roughly the cost of extending the ACA tax credits for three years," New York Sen. Chuck Schumer wrote. "But instead of lowering American’s healthcare costs, Hegseth used millions of taxpayer dollars on fruit baskets, Herman Miller recliners, ice cream machines, Alaskan King Crabs, and a Steinway & Sons grand piano.”

And, not surprisingly, the California Governor, the wild and crazy Gavin Newsome, also jumped on that bandwagon, along with several others.

But predictably, these critics are uninformed, misinformed, or lying through their teeth. A little research would protect them from these earth-shatteringly embarrassing faux pas.  

History is on Hegseth’s side.

“Steak and lobster! The outrage!” said The Whiskey Cowboy. “Special meals in association with deployment, before battle, or special events in the military is a tradition. This is nothing new. Those of us who have served know full well the sacrifices troops make during deployment and even in non-deployment times. We also know the risks that come with serving. It is part of the job. It is part of what we signed up for.

“So, the outrage seen by some concerning the steak and lobster meals served to troops now is beyond idiotic.” 

Real Clear Politics reported that when Gen. Lloyd Austin was the Secretary of Defense (now War) under President Joe Biden: “The military spent $103.7 million on meat, fish and poultry, including $16.6 million on ribeye steak and 147 orders of lobster tail for $6.1 million. Orders of blueberries, ice cream and doughnuts also exceeded $100,000.”

And Washington Examiner columnist Salena Zito wrote: “It is a common practice for the Pentagon to provide these special meals, often known as “surf and turf Fridays,” to our service men and women at least once a week. And this has been the case for decades.”

Yet again, the Left’s efforts to counter Trump’s administration at every turn includes a deep dive into the sewer to develop misinformation and outright lies. This behavior is not just dirty politics, it is un-American.

A loud and clear message was sent by voters on November 5th

November 26, 2024

The people spoke on November 5th, voting to make Donald Trump and J.D. Vance our next President and Vice President, and to give both houses of Congress a Republican majority.

And now, even after the disastrous message provided by the election results, the political left still is committed to divisiveness, unpopular attitudes and even illegal activities.

The election was a mandate from the people. The policies and realities of the last four years are highly unpopular, and voters want to restore the nation to the condition of the four years before President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took office in 2021, and to continue policies of that nature.

The election was a thumbs-down message about the absurd and dangerous virtual “open-border” policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to enter the country at will. The Biden administration even secretly flew thousands of illegals into the country, avoiding the border altogether. 

These illegal aliens are people with a variety of motives for coming here. Some are coming for the right reasons, even if their method of entering is a crime. But many, many others are drug dealers, women traffickers, child traffickers, robbers, rapists, murderers and other types of criminals. And some of them are on the terror watch list.

While many of them have been charged with crimes, the recent guilty verdict in the trial of the illegal alien with a heavily checkered criminal past who was accused of murdering 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley is indisputable proof that this and other crimes have occurred because the border security measures that were in place when Biden and Harris took office were cancelled in what looked like a 5-year-old’s temper tantrum on Biden’s part.

None of this seemed to even attract the interest of the Biden administration, which attempted unsuccessfully to blame the problem they created on the Republicans in Congress. The Republicans voted down a bad bill that supposedly was to address the situation, but wasn’t available until early 2024.

Biden’s reversing of Trump policies that were working pretty well also threw the country into four years of exceedingly high inflation. The war on domestic oil is responsible for the high gasoline and diesel prices, and shattered America’s energy independent status. It forced us to import oil and gas from other countries instead of using our own resources.

Under the Biden economic policies, people can’t afford things that had previously been affordable. Prices rose by more than 20 percent, a 40-year high. The average family of four was paying an additional $17,080 per year. The goods and services they could afford before January 2021, had risen to $1,423 per month more than before.

Businesses are caught in the middle of this mess. They have to deal with higher prices for the goods they market, and the components of the goods and services they produce. Increased costs lead to increased prices. And increased prices lead to unhappy customers and fewer customers who can afford the higher prices.

This affects small businesses greatly, as they are less able to deal with higher operational costs than the large companies. Some of them are forced to close down, putting workers on the unemployment line.

The public complaints of price increases on needed items led presidential candidate Harris to play politics with the inflation caused by the Biden/Harris administration.

Harris threatened to introduce a national ban on price gouging, if elected. She told an audience that her plan would “stop companies taking advantage of the desperation and need of the American consumer and jacking up prices without any consequences.”

These so-called “progressive” policies so badly affected the American people that they voted against them, and said a very loud “Stop it!” They don’t want open borders. They don’t like the much higher prices. It was a definite “No” to the exceedingly foolish Biden policies.

The country now looks ahead to next year when the Trump administration can begin to address the problem of millions of illegal aliens in the country and the costs in dollars and lives they bring. But blue state governors and blue city mayors have publicly announced their intention to fight the administration’s efforts to deport the millions of illegals who were happily, but illegally, welcomed into sanctuary states and cities.

For example, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has said that he would “fight to the death” against the Trump administration if it acted against New Jersey’s “values.” And Matt Platkin, New Jersey’s Attorney General, commented on X (formerly Twitter) that while he respects the electoral process and trusts in the peaceful transition of power, he will resist what he termed Trump’s unlawful attack on the “rights” of New Jersey residents to be in the country illegally.

But a majority of the country’s voters has said loudly that they are fed up with the dangers and expense of millions of illegal aliens being here, and with the unnecessarily high prices on everything they need and want.

They want an end to the foolish policies that brought these problems to us. The question now is, will the Democrats get the message and give up their radical un-American impulses?

What is happening in the aftermath of the 2024 election

November 12, 2024

“A relatively trouble-free presidential election was good news for those working to restore faith in the system,” the Associated Press (AP) reported last week. “Less encouraging was a flood of misinformation that sought to undermine trust in voting and sow chaos, something experts say is likely to get worse in the years ahead.”

So far, not many problems have been reported, but the AP did note that “The most significant test for officials on Election Day was a series of bomb threats reported in five battleground states, some of which forced polling places to be evacuated temporarily.”

Early voting saw more than 84 million people who voted either in person or by mail. Together with votes from polling places, former President Donald Trump won the popular vote with 74,783,561 votes and the Electoral College with 312 votes. Vice President Kamala Harris received 71,187,165 votes and 226 Electoral College votes, as the AP reported Sunday. 

Green Party candidate Jill Stein received 704,468 votes, and Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. received 681,096, even though he had withdrawn from the contest, and despite his efforts was left on the ballot in some states.

Now that this much-anticipated election of the next President, members of Congress and various state and local races is over, people might expect things to settle down.

But no, there is still a very lively atmosphere in the country. Of course, Trump followers are pretty happy with the results. They are now concerned with the transfer of power and seeing who Trump will put in the important positions of the new administration.

But those on the other side are having serious problems dealing with what happened. A lot of comments were focused on Donald Trump and all of the reasons why he shouldn’t have won, rather than on why Harris didn’t win.

Some serious and sensible observers, however, have focused on problems with the Harris campaign, generally giving her accolades, but also mentioning things she didn’t do that would have helped her, and things she did that didn’t help.

In a column in The Washington Post contributing columnist Matt Bai said this: “But you must admit that Harris, like Hillary Clinton then, was not a perfect candidate with a clear message. I think the most stunning numbers in some of the state exit polling are those that show Trump winning significant shares of union voters, Black voters and Latino voters. To me, that sort of confirms my instinct that it was risky, if not negligent, for Harris to run a campaign that was almost entirely about how awful her opponent is.”

And comedian Bill Maher, a self-described liberal who often says some very wise things, called the Democratic party “losers” and suggested that they “look in the mirror” following the election. “We had an election,” he said during a “Real Time” monologue on HBO Friday night. “I did not vote for the winner, we’ll see what the winners do now. They won, now they have reality they have to deal with. We’ll see what they do.”

But not everyone is so calm and sensible. We find the common idea of some celebrities threatening to move out of the country, while others refuse to perform in red states. There have also been videos made by disenchanted Harris followers screaming at the top of their lungs about their plight.

They are predicting that there will be no more elections, and that Trump will go after his political enemies, just as the DOJ and the left has done to him. 

“I think that we also have to deal with the issue of race and gender. There was a lot of gender bias in this,” said Al Sharpton. “There was a lot of race bias in this and I think that we thought a lot of voters were more progressive in those areas than they were.”

“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin was "profoundly disturbed by the results." She feels for the working class, the elderly and her own daughter, claiming she "now has less rights than I have." She worries that Trump will establish "internment camps." And she also said that "sexism and misogyny" were how Trump won the Latino vote in a Texas county that Hillary Clinton won in 2016.

Other Harris supporters made these comments: “I might wake up a slave.” “I’m in Texas and I am so afraid.” “If you’re a black man and you voted for Trump … I hope that cop beats you so good.” “Trying not to worry too much but I’ve been up since 3 crying and panicking.” “I feel like i’ll [sic] be going 6ft under.” “I’m panicking [for real.] We need a proper evacuation plan.”

Fortunately for us all, we did not elect a candidate because of their race or gender, or because they refused press conferences and answering questions in a serious manner. And we did not fail to elect a candidate because of their personality, the baseless and silly references to Hitler and fascism, and because they are a lawfare victim. 

Instead, we elected a candidate based on policies proven far better than what the American people and the nation have suffered under for the last four years.

Fear and desperation define the Democrats’ election strategy

December 26, 2023

In their never-ending effort to prevent former President Donald Trump from being elected for a second term, the Democrats have taken yet another step. Their fear that Trump will win in 2024 has driven them to levels of desperation likely unseen before of as a weapon against a presidential candidate in our history, or certainly in the last hundred years.

Without listing all of the efforts so far unleashed, suffice it to say that every imaginable contrivance has been used. The most recent is perhaps the most ridiculous.

The Colorado Supreme Court, a panel of seven Democrats appointed by a Democrat governor, has ruled that "President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President" under the 14th Amendment.

There was, of course, much delight from this decision, and much irritation. Let’s focus on the response from those who disagree with the Court’s action.

Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, called the action a “flawed decision.” “This is the most dangerous attack on your constitutional right to vote I have ever seen.”

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. commented that "Four partisan Democrat operatives on the Colorado Supreme Court think they get to decide for all Coloradans and Americans the next presidential election. This is un-American and Democrats are so afraid that President Trump will win on Nov 5th, 2024 that they are illegally attempting to take him off the ballot."

 “We trust the U.S. Supreme Court will set aside this reckless decision and let the American people decide the next President of the United States,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trump attorney Alina Habba commented that “This ruling, issued by the Colorado Supreme Court, attacks the very heart of this nation’s democracy. It will not stand, and we trust that the Supreme Court will reverse this unconstitutional order.”

Attorney and former law professor Alan Dershowitz, a long-time Democrat, appearing on Newsmax "National Report," said the following: "In the 60 years I've been practicing and teaching law, I've never seen a decision that's so anti-democratic and so unconstitutional; it is absurd," 

Dershowitz told National Report co-hosts Emma Rechenberg and Jon Glasgow, "The idea that the 14th Amendment was supposed to substitute for the impeachment provision, carefully drafted by the framers, is wrong."

He added that the 14th Amendment stipulates the process, which clearly says Congress shall have the power to ensure that a person cannot run for office.

"If you want to impeach a president, if you want to make him not be able to run in the future, there's a provision. It requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate," he said. "But the idea that the framers of the 14th Amendment intended to circumvent that carefully drawn provision and simply allow any state to make up grounds for denying him the right to be on the ballot undercuts democracy."

Because Trump allegedly engaged in an insurrection, according to the challengers, he is disqualified by Section 3. There are three major legal problems with that claim, however.

1. Trump didn’t hold an applicable office

2. He was not charged, let alone convicted, for ‘Insurrection or Rebellion’

3.  Section 3 is no longer extant. There is an argument that can be made — and which was already adopted by one federal court — that Section 3 doesn’t even exist anymore as a constitutional matter.

Offering more information on this, attorney Hans von Spakovsky with The Heritage Foundation wrote: “First, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies only to individuals who were previously a ‘member of Congress,’ an ‘officer of the United States,’ or a state official. Individuals who are elected — such as the president and vice president — are not officers within the meaning of Section 3. Second, no federal court has convicted Trump of engaging in ‘insurrection or rebellion.’ In fact, the Senate acquitted Trump of that charge in his second impeachment.”

Notre Dame University election law professor Derek T. Muller wrote in a blog last Tuesday, “This is a major and extraordinary holding from a state supreme court. Never in history has a presidential candidate been excluded from the ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. United States Supreme Court review seems inevitable, and it exerts major pressure on the Court.

The Democrats, who loudly defend “our democracy,” are now trying to save it by trying to eliminate their chief political enemy in a manner that is stunningly un-democratic. It is more like what one sees in banana republics.

A recent headline regarding the Colorado Supreme Court action read: “Colorado Saves Democracy By Not Allowing People To Vote For Preferred Candidate.”

It is worth noting that among the seven Democrats on the Colorado Supreme Court, three of them disagreed with this action.

This partisan action will act as a lesson for the future, as political parties may use this and similar methods to fight political enemies. Will there soon be a movement to remove Joe Biden from the ballot, too?

If this ridiculous, irrational action is allowed to stand, our nation will suffer a foundational transformation at the hands of Democrats.

Political shenanigans and crimes dominate political landscape

When it comes to which political party has received the most serious bad treatment, last week’s mail bomb threat targeting Democrats definitely ranks high. Even though it appears the “bombs” were built so that they wouldn’t explode, the idea of someone mailing bombs to people for political purposes is quite unsettling.

Among the targets of the devices were former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State and former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and 11 others.

One of the many honest-to-goodness experts on bombs appearing on TV analyzed the situation this way: The person who did that was either not trying to hurt anyone, or was the world’s worst bomb-maker.

Another important factor is that most of the bombs actually never made it to their recipient. Bad addresses, discovery by postal employees and Secret Service agents before delivery prevented recipients from actually getting delivery, although one made it to the home of Democrat funder George Soros, and another made it to the mailroom of CNN’s New York offices. That one was addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan, though Brennan is a NBC News contributor and has no public ties to CNN. Some of CNN’s offices were evacuated s a result.

Had these “bombs” detonated, this would be the most serious on the list of political crimes and persecutions. But since they did not, far and away the most serious is the shooting at a House Republican baseball practice last June where a lone gunman, a Bernie Sanders devotee, opened fire on the team. Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise nearly died from gunshot wounds, and is still recovering from them. Three other people were wounded.

While several republicans were harassed while trying to merely have a meal in a restaurant, and Senate Republicans were harassed as they walked the Halls of Congress, these things happened to a Democrat only once that made the news.

Certain media outlets and politicians like to lay blame for this hostility and violent behavior at the feet of our overly frank Commander-In-Chief, President Donald Trump. His attitude and language much too frequently stir the ire of people, especially Democrats.

But we must not overlook the sterling performances in unacceptable comments coming from angry Democrats, as well. They include Hillary Clinton, California Rep. Maxine Waters, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and former Attorney General Eric Holder. All of them have issued statements that fire up the anti-Trumpers, and anger Republicans. Waters leads the pack with her encouragement to confront administration officials in restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, and where ever they are seen.

Democrat activists have hassled Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and his wife, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and her spouse and children, Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Neilson and a friend, all while they were minding their business enjoying a meal at a restaurant. Not content to harass Neilson at dinner, the mob appeared at her home later, blasting loud noises from the street.

To date, the only Democrat in the news to have endured this treatment is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who was harassed at a campaign event in Florida by what was described as a “mob” that called her a communist, among other things.

And then earlier this month we have the letters containing a “white powdery substance,” a couple of them identified as containing deadly ricin, targeting President Trump, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, and Sen. Ted Cruz’s Houston campaign headquarters. Two Cruz staffers were hospitalized. 

Two weeks later, and following her wonderful comments as she announced her support for Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Maine Sen. Susan Collins received a suspicious letter at her home. Police were notified. In tweets, the letter writer claimed the letter was contaminated with ricin, but no harm was reported. Why so little news coverage of these events?

Naturally, those who support the victims of these acts blame the other side. Trump is the most common alleged perpetrator. However, as disturbing as all of these aggressive comments are, the blame needs to fall on those that actually carry out the harassment, mail letter bombs or ricin letters, or shoot up a baseball practice.

While the wild and crazy comments of the president and Congressional Democrats may affect their followers’ attitudes and thinking, their comments are just words. They are not orders that must be followed. And so long as they do not actually encourage violent acts are merely ill-advised speech.

Therefore, the responsibility for these acts is the sole responsibility of the person who committed the act. Bernie Sanders is not responsible for the near killing of Steve Scalise; the guy who decided to commit an illegal act is responsible. 

And Donald Trump is not responsible for a crazy ne’er-do-well sending phony bombs to Democrats; the ne’er-do-well is. And, Donald Trump is also not responsible for the nut-job who shot up the Jewish synagogue in Pittsburg killing 11 innocent people and wounding four others.

We must learn to assign responsibility where it belongs, not where it feels good.

Do Republicans realize that this is a pivotal time for America?

 

One thing most of us likely can agree on is that this has been a season of tragedy in the United States, most recently with the California wine country wild fires, and before that the Las Vegas shooting, and the hurricanes. Where disagreement thrives is on how we should respond to them.

During the presidency of Barack Obama our government took a sharp turn to the left, a dramatic increase in the much more gentle leftward drift it has been in for a long time. The election of Donald Trump was in large measure a backlash against Obama’s socialistic ideas, the Democrats’ abandonment of many of the values normal Americans observe, and the prospect of more of the same from Hillary Clinton.

So the voter’s said a loud “No!” to continuing the leftist governance of the Democrats by electing a Republican president and giving the GOP control of both houses of Congress. Unfortunately, what should have been a concentrated effort to start restoring Constitutional government has been put on hold by an obstinate faction of Republicans, some of whom have fallen victim to their own liberal impulses, and others who have let their egos overpower their sense of duty to their constituents, and have given in to hurt feelings in reaction to Donald Trump’s tweeting addiction, which too often gets personal.

If there is good news in this scenario for traditional Americans it is that the Trump presidency is not quite a year old, and there is time for both Trump and many Congressional Republicans to put these personal feelings behind them and get important things done.

But a sense of urgency about the Republican failures is certainly justified. A recent poll shows that a disturbing percentage of millennials would support an openly socialist candidate who follows in the misguided footsteps of Obama and company, precisely the opposite of what our country needs. If their voter participation rate increases, they could add significant support for socialist government, so Republicans had better get busy undoing the socialist initiatives and returning our government to its traditional, constitutional orientation.

Perhaps a lesson in what happens to good people when they are forced to live under the leftist, socialist prescription for governance will help, and there is probably no better example than that of Venezuela.

“As with all socialist systems, present-day Venezuela is marked by vicious poverty and a parasitical yet gilded ruling class,” wrote the President of The Mises Institute, Jeff Deist. In “The Austrian,” the Institute’s bi-monthly periodical, he wrote, “Sold to gullible Westerners as egalitarianism and concern for average people, socialism always makes ordinary citizens far worse off while destroying any hope for upward mobility. It is truly the ideology of the 1 percent.”

Economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises, after whom the Institute is named, said this about socialism in his treatise “Human Action”: “In a socialist economy it is only the government’s value judgments that count, and the people are deprived of any means of making their own value judgments prevail.”

Raphael A. Acevedo and Luis B. Cirocco are Venezuelans who participated in this year’s Mises University at the Institute as presenters on the subject of socialism’s impact on the lives of their country’s citizens. They wrote an account of Venezuela’s slide from relative freedom to a socialist hellhole for the current issue of “The Austrian.”

A hundred years ago the country began a lucrative period when it entered the international oil race, Acevedo and Cirocco write, and things were pretty good for a while, with not much government control of economic interests. It even overthrew a dictator and became a democracy in 1958.

However, the first democratically elected president, Romulo Betancourt, was a communist-turned-social democrat, and “he started destroying the economic institutions we had by implementing price controls, rent controls and other regulations we hadn’t had before,” they said, and then he created a new constitution hostile to private property.

Betancourt’s successors continued his socialist tendencies, and then in 1998 Hugo Chavez won election, promising to replace the country’s light socialism with more radical socialism. After Chavez’s death in 2013, Nicholas Maduro followed, and introduced a new constitution, which almost totally abolished private property.

“So, socialism is the cause of the Venezuelan misery,” Acevedo and Cirocco write. “Venezuelans are starving, eating garbage, losing weight. Children are malnourished. Anyone in Venezuela would be happy to eat out of America’s trashcans. It would be considered gourmet.”

And their summary of the country’s downfall: “As Venezuelans, our poor understanding of the importance of freedom and free markets has created our current disaster.”

We Americans have lost much of our freedom to government over the decades, and that increased substantially during the tragic Obama years.

Today we find that heavy federal intrusions in the area of healthcare through regulation and Obamacare raise prices and reduce access; the EPA’s regulatory over-reach aimed at killing the coal industry put thousands out of work; abundant welfare programs dampen the normal tendency of people to take care of themselves; the federal government controls much of K-12 education through financial “incentives” and Common Core requirements.

Republicans can and must address and reverse these trends. So get busy.

Do Republicans really vote against their constituents’ interests?

It is not news – not even fake news – that the political Right and the political Left do not see things the same way; they are different, just as men and women are. The Left frequently sees things as problems that the Right does not regard as problems, and vice versa. And even when the two sides agree that something is a problem, they have different ways of addressing it. The gulf between the two factions is wider today than ever before.

The idea that Republican voters sometimes/often vote against their own interests is a Democrat talking point, and was the subject of a New York Times podcast that was discussed in a National Review online article by senior writer David French recently. The podcast host, Times managing editor Michael Barbaro, interviewed domestic-affairs correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who cited the situation in the state of Kentucky, one of the states that suffered mightily when the War on Coal put enough people out of work to run Kentucky’s coal jobs to their lowest level in 118 years.

The out-of-work miners, forced onto Medicaid by the War on Coal, benefited greatly from Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, Stolberg said, “yet, its Republican senators are leading the charge for Obamacare repeal, including for Medicaid reform. How can that be?”

The answer to that question comes from the different ways of looking at the world and at life from opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Which of the following sets of ideas do you most closely observe?

1. The nuclear family is an antique idea, traditional ideas of morality and culture are holding us back, sexual autonomy is a virtue, and we just can’t get by without government “help.”

2. First, we graduate from high school, get a job to sustain ourselves, get married, and then have children and raise a family.

If you chose 1, you likely lean toward the political Left; if you chose 2, you likely lean toward the political Right. These different views of how to live our lives define why Republicans vote against what seem to be their interests.

“Now, between the two parties, which one has centered its appeal around married parents with kids and which party has doubled down on single moms,” French asks? “Even worse, the Democrats’ far-left base has intentionally attacked the nuclear family as archaic and patriarchal. It has celebrated sexual autonomy as a cardinal virtue. Then, when faced with the fractured families that result, it says, ‘Here, let the government help,’” he writes.

How does this relate to Kentucky’s Republican Senators? They are voting on their ideas of what makes America great, and according to French, those interests “depend on the complex interplay between our faith, our families, and our communities.” It’s all about core values.

New York Times columnist David Brooks traces these values back to American frontier towns, where life was “fragile, perilous, lonely and remorseless,” where a “single slip could produce disaster,” and as a result the frontier folk learned to practice “self-restraint, temperance, self-control and strictness of conscience.”

Those values are at the heart of the American experience of carving a powerful and free republic out of a wilderness, a nation that has as a result led the world for decades. They reflect the Biblical values brought here and cultivated during America’s first turbulent and troubled decades, and which formed the basis of the government created following the “Colexit” of the Colonies from Mother England’s repressive grasp.

Republicans, or at least those who are true conservatives, honor the ideals of freedom, personal responsibility, self-reliance, and limited government, and to a less-than-perfect degree – but a far-greater degree than those who call themselves liberals, progressives, or socialists – try to live by these values.

Kentucky’s Republican Senators dislike the government’s solution to the problem that the government itself created when it over-regulated nearly everything, and so they see a vote against maintaining this absurdity as a virtuous one. They prefer a system freeing Americans to make their own decisions about healthcare and health insurance without the one-size-fits-nobody concept that the Democrats created that we commonly call Obamacare.

Their vote seemingly punishes those they should most want to help: their constituents and supporters. But the bigger picture shows instead the desire to free their constituents from the damaging big government policies that put them on the government dole. The want to create an environment where they can find another job that can sustain them above the poverty line, and off of Medicaid.

Republicans want to do away with this Democrat-created problem. Their fundamental goal is to free Americans from this horrible, failed big government mechanism. Its aim was to ultimately create a single-payer, totally government-controlled healthcare system that would mirror the British system. You know the one: it recently took control of decisions on seriously ill infant Charlie Gard’s care away from his parents, and effectively ordered the Charlie’s death.

That case demonstrates precisely how government-run healthcare can, and likely will, degenerate into a system where government makes decisions about who lives and dies. And that explains why Republicans seem to vote against their constituents’ interests.

2016 is the year that saw both major political parties collapse

The election of 2016 will be remembered – and reviled, by many – for years to come.

One party’s establishment had a coronation in mind; the other party’s had a primary process it thought would produce a milquetoast candidate along the lines of the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress that failed to stand their ground. Both parties were wrong, and what transpired during the primary process and the election shocked millions.

The Republican Party's collapse began years ago, when it forgot that it was the keeper of the nation’s conservative foundations, and squandered many opportunities to make positive and needed changes and to stop an imperialist president. That collapse peaked during the primary season. Among the 17 candidates was Donald Trump, a non-politician who attracted the attention of the voters with his intention to “Make America Great Again” and his promise to “drain the swamp.” His political inexperience was ridiculed and his appeal underestimated by nearly everyone, but against the desires of the establishment Republicans and despite their subversive efforts, he won the nomination comfortably.

Along the way to winning the GOP nomination, Trump churned up enormous amounts of bad will among both Republicans and Democrats. All of that chaos rendered the GOP so badly splintered that it was barely recognizable as a political party. But Trump won the all-but-destroyed GOP’s nomination, defied the conventional wisdom and the millions of Hillary faithful and won a significant Electoral College victory.

The Democrat Party's collapse began as a strong, blinding emotion for Hillary Clinton to again declare her desire to be crowned the first female President of the United States that had been on-hold for eight years. After all, it is time for a female president, right, and who is more deserving than she? With the exception of Bernie Sanders’ strong challenge to her anticipated coronation, the signs of collapse were obscured to Democrats and liberals by their overwhelming desire for a female president.

But on the campaign trail Clinton insulted Trump supporters, saying, “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” and generally ran a poor campaign. Her strategy was largely to slam Trump for nearly everything he did and said. She is not particularly likeable, and her list of scandals and bad judgment did not help her lagging popularity. That the jig was up became obvious early Wednesday morning, and Clinton was reportedly so disconsolate that she did not even concede the election until hours later. The pain lingers for Clinton and her supporters to this day.

What has happened to the two parties since their respective collapse is that the Republicans actually began a gradual restoration before Election Day, with some anti-Trumpers, perhaps grudgingly, coming around to give some degree of support to their party’s candidate. And as President-Elect Trump has been steadily assembling his administration, other prominent Republicans have been coming on board.

The GOP still has a long way to go, however, but is well ahead of the Democrats, who cannot accept the fact that Clinton did not win the election. They were so, so, so sure of their vision of a first-ever female president; but they were so, so, so wrong. Their disillusionment and desperation is palpable.

They didn’t notice the level of dissatisfaction of the people, and still haven’t realized what happened. Instead, they blame FBI Director James Comey’s crazy behavior in the email scandal investigation and Clinton’s inferior campaigning as causes for the loss, never aware that after eight years of President Barack Obama’s failed policies, the country wants change.

Having missed the reason for their defeat, they aren’t working to revitalize the party, but instead are indulging in playground-style name-calling and criticizing everything Trump says and does, labeling him and his choices for positions racists, sexists, misogynists, bigots, homophobes, and white nationalists. And last week rather than try someone new with different ideas, House Democrats re-elected California’s Nancy Pelosi as Minority Leader.

While Trump focuses on carefully selecting people for administration positions – capable people the left would never have thought of – those selections are automatically considered bad and are setting the country up for major failure.

Democrats and the left media are stunned that the new president has different ideas about what the country needs than they have, and have lost all semblance of common sense over Trump accepting a congratulatory phone call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan, on the grounds that it would upset China. The idea that an American president ought to check with any nation before talking to a national leader is preposterous.

Trump has ably demonstrated that he, like all of us, is an imperfect being. He is not a politician; he does not think like a politician, act like a politician, nor speak like a politician. Those who support him and voted for him understand that he will have failures and shortcomings, and will make mistakes, as all previous presidents have, and all future presidents will. Nevertheless, all of this will become fuel for fires the left will kindle, and will throw misunderstood context, misconstrued comments and exaggeration on a flickering flame trying to start a blaze.

R.I.P. GOP?

The Republican Party is a mess. It has:
    •    Lost its way as a political force;
    •    Largely abandoned American traditions and founding principles;
    •    Become “Democrat lite,” because Republicans nowadays so often think and vote like Democrats;
    •    Failed to listen to its members.

With the GOP disintegrating there is little to halt or slow the devolution of the United States into just one more failed socialist state, something Barack Obama has worked tirelessly to achieve, and which either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would continue.

Donald Trump leads conventional Republican candidates in the primaries and caucuses, which surprises and confounds the party elite, who thought he would be a flash in the pan, and would soon fade away, leaving them to continue abandoning their party’s role in protecting the American way of life, and ignoring the concerns of their voters. This effectively demonstrates how badly they have misjudged the level of anger and disgust with the current state of their party that rank and file Republicans feel today, as well as the high degree of dissatisfaction they and a host of non-Republicans have with the federal government.

Trump’s behavior is at once energizing and destructive. It has won him a large following, and at the same time has exaggerated the party’s fracturing, pitting candidates against him and against each other in an elementary schoolyard brawl. But his tactic of saying things others are afraid to say, and ignoring the stupid but daunting rules of political correctness, has energized millions of dissatisfied Republicans, and has attracted non-Republicans, including blacks and Hispanics, to his campaign.

The “establishment” Republicans – those whose weak-kneed perspective has transformed the party to Democrat lite – are working to subvert the primary process, disenfranchising the Republican primary/caucus voters. The establishment’s behavior over recent years is precisely why things are as they are, and hardly anything could be worse than ignoring the plain message sent by the voters in the primaries and caucuses that substantial change in the GOP is needed. It is difficult to imagine that the Republican Party will be able to survive if it betrays the loud voices of those who make up the party telling them to man up, and still remain a viable political entity.

A perfect example of the tone-deafness of the party elite is the blistering condemnation of Donald Trump by 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who turned backflips to make Trump seem like the Devil incarnate. If that doesn’t seem strange, consider that during the campaign four years ago, following Trump’s endorsement, Romney effusively praised him, and then proceeded to lose the election by failing to be as strong in his opposition to Obama as he was in his praise of Trump.

It is another tribute to the failure of the GOP establishment that it regards Romney’s foolish trashing of Trump more highly than the candidate now leading the party’s nominating process.

Peggy Noonan, who was Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan and now a political columnist for The Wall Street Journal, wrote last week, “I think we are seeing a great political party shatter before our eyes. I’m not sure I see a way around or through.” Of the spectacle of last Tuesday’s debate in Detroit she noted that the current GOP crisis is “something bigger than 1976, that traumatic year when a Republican insurgent almost toppled the incumbent Republican president. Bigger too than 1964, when Goldwater conservatism swept the primaries and convention and lost the country.”

She asserts that what is happening now is more serious and less reparable because it is not about political philosophy. But it seems that the party’s abandonment of conservative principles is precisely what this is about.

By ignoring the increasing frustration of the rank and file over Republicans in Congress failing to stand up against liberalizing of government policies and recent executive branch excesses, the party elite set the stage for Donald Trump’s stunning dominance among those seeking the party’s nomination.

Where Trump is concerned the party elite is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they allow the process to play out and he wins the nomination, someone believed by millions to be neither a Republican, a conservative or suitable to be president will carry the Party banner into the election.

If they continue the plot to subversively prevent Trump from getting the nomination, they will alienate millions of otherwise dependable Republican voters.

It seems likely at this stage that the Republican Party will endure, but not as a meaningful political force equal to the Democrat Party. The Republican establishment will be left holding the tatters of a once-Grand Old Party while conservatives move on to greener pastures.

Disaffected Republican voters and others dissatisfied with the status quo that might have stuck with or joined a conservative GOP now will seek an organization that honors and defends the U.S. Constitution not only in word, but also in deed.

The question is whether without a viable opponent to Hillary or Bernie, or a split among those opponents, will it be possible four or eight years later to repair the damage likely to result from another liberal/socialist in the White House?

Ominous omnibus: There are many problems with the spending bill

Last Friday Congress passed the omnibus spending bill, avoiding a government shutdown when current funding expired at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 23. At 2,009 pages it spent a dazzling $1.149 trillion, and like most legislation it had some good features and some less-than-desirable features.

It was described as far-reaching legislation funding the government until next October, passing tax breaks for businesses and low-income families, reauthorizing programs to compensate and provide health care for first responders and survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and a cybersecurity measure that could help businesses cooperate more closely with the government and each other in fighting online threats.

The bill easily cleared both chambers, first in the House, which passed it 316-113, followed by the Senate in a 65-33 vote. President Barack Obama signed the measure.

Republicans, who hold majorities in both houses – 54 percent in the House and nearly 57 percent in the Senate – supported the bill by a significant majority in the House, but in in the Senate only about one-third voted for the bill.

Despite the Republican majority in both houses, the GOP managed only a few real victories, while the minority party won big, according to most analyses.

Republicans gained the lifting of a 40-year ban on oil exports, prohibiting funding to bail out the insurance companies in the Obamacare health insurance program, and preventing the IRS from regulating political speech.

However, they were unable to restrict the Syrian refugee program, end funding for Obama’s executive actions on immigration, defund Planned Parenthood, defund sanctuary cities, or restrain EPA over-regulation of ponds and streams, and coal-burning power plants.

Perhaps the most noteworthy provision in the bill is the one that could allow more than a quarter-million temporary guest workers into the country, an increase from the previous federal cap of 66,000 on H-2B visas for low-skilled foreign workers seeking blue-collar jobs in the U.S. This is a significant change to immigration law, and it has conservatives dismayed. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told The Daily Signal, “It came out of nowhere, completely out of nowhere,” the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus said, “[and] everyone was shocked there was a change and no one had talked about it.”

Conservatives are displeased that the Republicans were unable to remove so many troublesome provisions that they should strongly oppose, and also with the very process that created the bill and brought it to a vote.

Critics of the bill and its passage complained that the rank-and-file members of the House were not included in negotiations. Congressional leaders assembled the bill in smoke-filled back rooms and did not release the text of the 2,009-page bill until 2 a.m. last Wednesday, and the separate 233-page tax-extenders bill was released just before midnight.

Prior to the vote Heritage Action for America chief executive Michael A. Needham said the package represents the most sweeping changes to tax policy since 2012. “In fewer than 48 hours, lawmakers will likely be asked to vote on two massive bills that were negotiated behind closed doors over the past several weeks,” he said.

After the vote Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky explained his “no” vote to a New York radio station: “It was over a trillion dollars, it was all lumped together, 2,242 pages, nobody read it, so frankly my biggest complaint is that I have no idea what kind of things they stuck in the bill.” “I voted against it because I won’t vote for these enormous bills that no one has a chance to read,” Paul continued. “[T]his is not a way to run government. It’s a part of the reason why government is broke." And broken, he might have added.

Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, who voted against the spending bill, said Republicans voted for the bill in part to support House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-WI, who had just taken that position and they were hopeful he would be more inclusive with rank and file members than his predecessor, former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

“There were a lot of people who didn’t want to vote for this, but they were giving him a vote out of good faith,” he said. At the same time, many also were worried that Ryan had given Democrats too many policy concessions in the bill, a feeling now confirmed. “The Democrats unfortunately just learned that they can mistreat him like they mistreated Boehner, which is a really bad thing,” Labrador said.

What the Framers designed as an efficient and transparent system of lawmaking now operates in the gutter. These days, bills often reflect dishonorable characteristics like this bill had:
    •    Created in secrecy
    •    Hundreds or thousands of pages long
    •    Voted on without time to be properly considered
    •    Amendments not permitted
    •    Contain elements unrelated to the purpose of the bill
    •    Are approved for political expediency, rather than by broad support

Too many bills are designed not to produce needed and broadly supported laws, but to enact politically useful and narrowly focused measures that benefit some at the expense of the others.

This process is yet one more sign of the devolving nature of our country. If America is to survive, good government must be restored.

Republicans face problems in debates and the House of Representatives

Say what you will about the way CNBC conducted the Republican debate, the business side of NBC News did something that neither Fox News nor CNN were able to do.

All three had similarities, like gotcha questions and efforts to pit one candidate against another, elements that obstructed a discussion of the serious issues of electing a nominee for President of the United States, rather than assisting voters in making an informed decision. To the extent that real issues arose, the combative atmosphere moderators created in all three debates got in the way.

In sharp contrast to the mood in Republican debates was the Democrat debate on CNN, which also failed to reveal important information about the candidates, but approached not doing so by giving hugs and kisses to the candidates.

CNBC was both over the top and under the table. The three moderators were clearly not up to conducting a meaningful debate, not even on business and economic issues, and the muddle that resulted drew almost universal criticism. Moderators were poorly prepared, partisan, thought they were the stars of the show, were argumentative and often interrupted the candidates. While so many TV news people seem infected with the idea that being quarrelsome is cool, CNBC took that to a new level. You can challenge candidates on issues and answers, and still be civil.

However, as horrible as it was, CNBC did succeed in uniting the candidates for the first time since the campaign began, if only against CNBC’s amateurish approach, and the revolt that followed did produce a little discussion of important issues.

The 2016 debate series should be a valuable element in the process of selecting presidential candidates. Along with public and media appearances, the debates are opportunities for voters to hear candidates discuss their platforms and they are the only vehicle where the pros and cons of the various positions are aired in a way that voters have the opportunity to evaluate them side-by-side. 

So far they all have been disappointing, in terms of illuminating the candidate’s views, but CNBC wins the brown ribbon for the absolute worst. In place of questions on substantive issues, the moderators worked hard to trap and demean the Republican participants, which is very different from challenging them on issues.

Unfortunately, our campaign process identifies the best candidate, not necessarily the person best suited to be president. So much is based on appearance and performance, rather than candidates’ understanding of the country’s problems and sensible ideas for addressing them. A track record of success takes a back seat to image, charm and glibness.

And Republicans have the additional obstacle posed by the liberals in the media, who often misunderstand and not infrequently deliberately mischaracterize their objectives, and tell the world how awful they are.

Granted that the GOP is sharply divided, unlike the Democrat Party that pretty much possesses no diversity of thought. But the left portrays this Republican diversity as a weakness, which is interesting, since the left considers diversity one of the most important things in life.

It suits the purposes of the left to mischaracterize and demonize the House Freedom Caucus, the Tea Party groups and other elements of the right, and there are plenty of media sources indulging in that activity.

Some, commenting on Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan’s election as House Speaker, wonder how he will possibly be able to manage such an unruly group. The liberal writers characterize the conservative Republican bloc with terms such as “right-wing fringe” and “radicals.”

The liberal writers are happy to offer guidance to conservatives, such as that if their subgroup wants to set policy for its party, all it needs is to have a majority of the party’s support. And if it doesn’t have a majority, it should meekly abandon its position and support the position of the majority.

And that no doubt would please liberals and Democrats, and many Republicans. However, millions of Republican voters recognize that this approach is largely why things are worse today than when the GOP gained control of the Congress, and why the Republican Congress has been so ineffective at representing their views.

These conservative House members were elected not to offer their ideas and then surrender, they were elected to fight for their supporter’s beliefs in the traditional conservative values that built the country, and to stick by them. Isn’t that what republican government is all about?

The liberals advise that when voters have put one party in charge of the executive branch and another party in charge of the legislative branch, as is the case today, compromise is demanded to move the country forward.

However, compromise does not mean surrender, as many of these “advisors” suggest. One does not oppose a bill with multiple objectionable elements, and then “compromise” by accepting the whole package when others resist changes. The two sides identify those elements they agree on, take the rest out of the legislation, and move the compromise measure forward.

Compromise means that everyone gives up something, not just the conservative Republicans. It is sad – even dangerous – that so many Republicans do not understand this.

American media abandons objectivity in order to target Republicans

California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy on the Sean Hannity show on Fox News: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable (sic). But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.”

Her defenders jumped at the opportunity to interpret that statement to mean that the Republicans held the hearings expressly for the purpose of bringing Mrs. Clinton down, an allegation that became instantly popular with the left-leaning media. Mr. McCarthy’s artless statement certainly may be read to support such an assertion, but that statement can also be interpreted in other ways. However, let’s not forget that the Select Committee was formed in May of 2014, well before Ms. Clinton appeared as an  “unbeatable” candidate.

If you read for meaning, rather than opportunity, you will notice that he also said that the hearings have shown her to be “untrustable,” a result not of Republican desires, but of Mrs. Clinton’s willful behavior that the hearings have brought to light. Her falling numbers resulted from examining her flawed performance.

Objective observers understand the Benghazi probe’s purpose is nothing other than trying to get to the bottom of a deadly foreign policy and security blunder by the Obama administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

To review, on September 11, 2012 Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi, Libya, not at the embassy in Tripoli. An armed attack on the American Consulate there occurred and ultimately resulted in the death of Ambassador Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyron Woods and Glen Doherty.

The initial explanation from the Obama administration was that the attack was the result of a demonstration spawned by an Internet video, a position the administration maintained for days after the attack.

CBS News initially reported that a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi said that an angry mob had gathered outside the consulate to protest a video made in the U.S. that was offensive to Muslims, and stormed the consulate after the U.S. troops who responded to the mob’s appearance fired rounds into the air to try and disperse the crowd. CBS later reported that U.S. officials said the attack was not an out-of-control demonstration, but a well-executed assault.

The New York Times reported: "American and European officials said that while many details about the attack remained unclear, the assailants seemed organized, well trained and heavily armed, and they appeared to have at least some level of advance planning." 

Suspicions arose because while a video could have spurred a demonstration, the attack that followed was clearly mounted by a military-type organized group, not a group of upset demonstrators. 

To decide if this investigation is legitimate, all one must do is ask and honestly answer some questions about the Benghazi attack. 

Does Congress have constitutional oversight responsibility to look into executive branch actions such as why Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi at a time of increasing tensions and when an organized attack by a military-like force occurred?

Should the American people know why repeated requests from Ambassador Stevens for increased security in Benghazi prior to the assault were rejected, to know who rejected those requests, and why? 

And, who made the decision to not dispatch military units to try to help the beleaguered consulate on the basis of there not being time for them to get there when no one knew how long the assault would last? 

This legitimate and appropriate investigation produced a lot of evidence about Mrs. Clinton’s performance, and her disregard of the rules about email – including using her own email system for government emails – that every Secretary of State and other Cabinet secretaries have followed since Al Gore invented the Internet that put classified information at risk. These issues have raised numerous legitimate doubts about her fitness to be president.

Yet the media seems unconcerned with these contemptuous breaches of rules and protocol, and the failure to protect classified, perhaps top secret, information. 

Meanwhile, Rep. McCarthy, the Majority Leader who was expected to succeed Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, following his announced resignation, unexpectedly declined the position. The media went wild, trumpeting the chaos in the GOP, and somewhere along the way someone suggested that Rep. McCarthy and a female representative were having an affair.

Both he and she denied it, and no evidence – let alone proof – has been produced. Nevertheless, the subject remains a part of the story about Rep. McCarthy stepping aside.

On Fox News’ “Media Buzz” last Sunday, a panel of journalists all said it is proper for this to be part of the ongoing story, despite there being no evidence that it is true. Since viewers/readers can find references to this alleged affair on the Internet, the reasoning goes, the media are therefore obligated to cite it.

By that reasoning, any allegation made by anyone about any public figure should become part of every story about or involving that person. This is the confused state of journalism today.

Message to the media: You factually report; we’ll decide.

How defective Republican Congressional leadership threatens liberty

Wednesday morning on Bloomberg Business TV’s “The Pulse,” host Francine Lacqua brought up the situation in the House of Representatives following House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announcing his retirement later this month. Program contributor Hans Nichols opined that a group of 40-50 Republicans that he characterized as saying no to everything, that doesn’t want to lead, and wants to shut things down, has plagued Mr. Boehner, whereas by contrast Mr. Boehner and the leadership were trying to “govern.” Although Mr. Nichols didn’t use a term to describe that group, “radical” is a term commonly used.

What Mr. Nichols misses is that the idea of “governing” employed by Speaker Boehner and his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is all too similar to that of the former Democrat leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who led with such foresight that the Democrats lost control of the Congress.

Too many Americans seem not to understand that political parties evolved from differences in philosophies, which introduce a diversity of ideas into the governing process. (They like diversity, except in politics, where it is truly needed.) Thus, there is a better chance of finding good solutions to problems, when solutions are needed. And when no proposal can gather enough support among the diverse membership of the two houses, they enact no legislation.

What the “radical” faction of the Republican majority did is exactly what the Founders envisioned the Legislative Branch doing: introducing and advocating the things they believe are needed, and opposing those that they believe are not needed, or may even be harmful. Making legislation was never intended to be a smooth and easy process. As Otto von Bismarck said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”

The idea is that competing political philosophies propose ideas to address a problem and try to find areas of agreement on important and appropriate issues. Virtually every Republican or Democrat proposal contains elements that the opposing party will not agree with, but they may well – and should – contain elements that both sides can agree on. Those are what should become law, and the rest should be tabled or trashed.

This approach means that both sides get less than they want, but the country gets solutions that gather enough bi-partisan support to be approved, which likely means that a true bi-partisan solution has a fair chance of working.

It is not uncommon for Congressional Democrats to introduce legislation that they know Republicans will oppose, which then allows them to accuse the GOP of partisanship and obstructing progress for political purposes. The compliant media then engages its corruption squad to give the Democrat position nearly exclusive support.

It is a political process, after all. But which side is the more actively political: the one that opposes measures it believes are bad, or the one that designs measures to fail?

What if one party offers proposals that the other party, or a significant number of its members, can find no common ground in. What it Party A offers a measure for Party B to have his left hand amputated? Does Party B compromise on losing only a finger or two?

The “radicals” in the Republican Party oppose measures they see as antithetical to the founding principles. These are the kinds of proposals they say “No” to, and do not support.

When the Republicans gained a majority in both houses of Congress, their supporters rightly expected to see changes in the way Congress worked.  They wanted strong conservative actions from their elected representatives, in contrast to the liberal measures brought forth by the former Democrat majority.

Instead, Congressional Republican leaders have sat around while the president ignored the role and duties of the Congress to put his agenda in place. The “radical” Republicans strongly object to this failure of the legislative branch to protect its authority and do its duty. So should we all.

The Republican leadership cowers in a corner when there is pressure to bring a measure to a vote, knowing that even if the measure passes, the president will veto it. “If we know he will veto it, why waste the time it will take to pass it?” Here’s why: Because if Republicans don’t vote on and pass a measure, then they have taken no official position. The Congressional leadership will have decided the issue by inaction rather than forcing the president to take a public position by vetoing legislation passed by Congress. The majority party will have given the president an easy victory, and surrendered the right to complain about the results. This is not leadership.

The Republicans that Mr. Nichols seemingly holds in such disdain are working to uphold fundamental American political values, which is what the voters that delivered the Republicans the majority expect. If advocating fundamental principles has now become a radical activity, it demonstrates just how far the political left has moved from the principles that allowed America to grow into the most successful and free nation in history.

We must restore the founding values to the federal government: smaller, less expensive, non-wasteful, responsive, constitutional government, a government that truly serves the people who pay for it.