I Guess We Know Who Palin Won’t Be Endorsing

I hate to admit it, but Sarah Palin actually makes quite a bit of sense here. I’m not saying that the other candidates’ attacks on Romney’s work for Bain Capital don’t have an anti-capitalist tone to them. But Palin is absolutely right that if Romney doesn’t confront these criticisms now he will be forced to confront them in the general election (and even if he does confront them now, he’ll see them again). Gingrich, Santorum, and Perry might back off when they hear cries of class warfare. Barack Obama will take those complaints to mean he’s doing something right. Also,...

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Hope, Change, and the Compassion of Dr. Ron Paul

I missed this ad somehow when it was first making its rounds. Everybody, and especially those who believe Congressman Paul is racist because of the newsletter debacle, needs to see it. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I’m not ashamed of my vote, though I’m not particularly proud of it either. Nothing that the Republicans had done under George W. Bush for the previous eight years led me to believe that they deserved another presidential term. Nothing that John McCain or Sarah Palin said or did changed my mind about that. But it was more than that. I was...

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Rule 5 Sunday

What you see to your right are Beer and Bacon Mancakes, which are pancakes infused with beer, bacon, and brown sugar. And you know they’re delicious because the recipe comes from Betty Crocker(h/t That’s Nerdalicious). Interestingly enough, the recipe recommends “your favorite regular or nonalcoholic beer.” But I’m thinking these bad boys are going to taste fairly different if you use, for example, Guinness, as opposed to Bud Light Lime. Then again, these are called mancakes — so maybe we’re just assuming here that “beers” like Bud Light Lime are out of the question. On an entirely different note, Sylvia D. Lucas penned...

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Marriage Inequality is Not Rational

As the Supreme Court continues to consider whether or not to take cases on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, Good As You reminds us what motivates opponents of marriage equality. The so-called Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the central anti-marriage equality organizations involved in this legal battle, is clearly and unsurprisingly motivated by religious values that have no place in our laws: Redefining marriage will hinder the spread of the Gospel. This is especially true when it comes to ministering to those caught in the snare of sexual sin. When the government implicitly endorses...

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Go Filibuster Yourself!

Republican obstruction in the Senate reached a whole new level yesterday when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was forced to, well, filibuster himself. From The Huffington Post: A move to embarrass Democrats backfired on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday as the Kentucky Republican proposed a vote on raising the nation’s debt ceiling — then filibustered it when the Democrats tried to take him up on the offer. Two things occur to me here. First, Senator McConnell should never play poker. Never. Second, remember when former Vice President Dick Cheney had a few choice words for Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in 2004? We should...

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Why Did “4 More Years” Matter So Much?

Following President Barack Obama’s defeat of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on Tuesday, many are wondering what brought Obama’s supporters back to the polls in an election year when the economy is still struggling and unemployment is still high. After all, Obama supporters defied history in reelecting the President. No President has been reelected with an unemployment rate this high since the Depression-era reelection of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. What’s more, America has not seen three consecutive two-term Presidents since Thomas Jefferson and his two successors. Some possible answers to this question have been gleaned from exit polls and common sense....

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I’m Praying for Mike O’Neal’s Incarceration

From The Washington Examiner: Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal is under fire after asking Republican House members to pray for President Barack Obama’s death. O’Neal made the request via an email he forwarded to GOP colleagues in the House. In an email sent in December, O’Neal asked his fellow Republicans to pray Psalm 109 . . . News of the email is a sad commentary on Republican politics in Kansas.  In addition, the email prayer request indicates an astonishing disregard and disrespect for the office of the presidency. For a government official to pray for the death of President Obama, and...

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But Impeachment? Yeah, I Could Go For That

In an interview with National Journal (h/t Hot Air), Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, floated the idea of impeachment if President Obama raises taxes in a hypothetical second term: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress. To be clear: If Norquist is proposing that Obama can or should be impeached for raising taxes or signing executive orders,...

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Mitt Romney: Tea Party Candidate

On Wednesday, I wrote a post at United Liberty arguing that libertarians and Tea Party conservatives should embrace former Governor Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) as the best viable candidate to take on Barack Obama. Yesterday I penned another post pointing out that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) are much more connected to the Washington, D.C. establishment than Gov. Romney. Whether Tea Party conservatives like it or not, their own convictions demand that they back Gov. Romney over Speaker Gingrich or Sen. Santorum. Tea Party conservatives liked former Governor Rick Perry (R-Tex.) because he had governed a state...

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Obama’s Declaration of Dependence

An excerpt from another of my posts at United Liberty: Since the State of the Union address on Tuesday, it has become clear if it wasn’t already that President Obama would like to see Americans become wholly dependent on government. Need a job? Government will provide it. Need food? Government will buy it. Obama even perversely implied during his address that a free market cannot exist without government intervention. The president’s address served as a stunning indictment of the state of our union in 2012. Some 236 years after Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the American president delivered a...

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Pop Quiz: Who Are the Actual Establishment Candidates?

An excerpt from yet another post at United Liberty: It’s pop quiz time. Which of the following sounds least like the description of a Washington, D.C. establishment candidate? a) A former one-term state governor never elected to federal office who spent decades prior to running for public office as a businessman in the private sector; b) A former Speaker of the House who spent just eight years working as a college professor before serving for twenty years in the House of Representatives, who as Speaker was reprimanded and fined for an ethics violation, and who after resigning from Congress spent nine...

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If You Want to Build Democracies, Pursue a Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy

An excerpt from my latest post at United Liberty: Libertarians are often accused of being isolationists who are unconcerned about the people of other nations. While it may be true that some libertarians are isolationists, most are non-interventionists — and the two words are not synonymous. Isolationism advocates complete disengagement from foreign affairs. Non-interventionism, on the other hand, embraces engagement with the rest of the world but rejects costly and counterproductive economic, diplomatic, and military coercion. Thomas Jefferson summed up non-interventionism when he argued for “[p]eace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.” These key components...

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Gingrich: Same-Sex Marriage “a Perfect Example of What I Mean By the Rise of Paganism”

Yes, really: It’s pretty simple: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is a historic doctrine driven deep into the Bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and it’s a perfect example of what I mean by the rise of paganism. The effort to create alternatives to marriage between a man and a woman are perfectly natural pagan behaviors, but they are a fundamental violation of our civilization. In one conference call Gingrich has managed to alienate gay and lesbian Republicans and independents, inaccurately disparage actual Pagans, and turn off anyone who would prefer...

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Rick Santorum Supported Individual Mandates in ’94

An excerpt from one of my posts today at United Liberty: What does all of this mean for the race? Well, for starters, it means that Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.) is now the only remaining Republican presidential candidate who hasn’t supported mandated health care coverage in the past. It also means that it’s time for Gingrich’s and Santorum’s supporters to acknowledge that their candidates aren’t anti-establishment conservative alternatives to Romney; rather they are both establishment Republicans who have a long history of supporting government expansion. Read the rest at United Liberty.

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