THERE IS NO SECOND PLACE

Giuliani wants to reduce the regulation of health insurance and change federal tax law that pushes people into expensive, all-inclusive plans.

Republicans need to fix health care, education, tax reform and re examine drug policy.

The GOP Debate Over Health-Care Reform
By Michael Tanner
CNSNews.com Commentary
July 30, 2007

The long-simmering battle for the soul of the Republican Party may be about to erupt, not over immigration or Iraq, but over the unlikeliest of issues: health care.

As I wrote about in my book, "Leviathan on the Right," Republicans have been increasingly split between traditional Reagan-Goldwater small-government conservatives and a new breed of "big-government conservatives" who believe in using an activist government to achieve conservative ends -- even if it means increasing the size, cost and power of government in the process.

The difference in the two camps is as clear as the difference between Ronald Reagan saying that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," and George W. Bush saying: "we have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move."

Bush's brand of big-government conservatism brought us No Child Left Behind, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and a 23 percent increase in domestic discretionary spending. It may well have cost Republicans control of Congress. After all, on election night 2006, 55 percent of voters said that they thought the Republican Party was the party of big government.

Now, the Republican primary campaign raises the question of whether the party will continue down the Bush path or will return to its Reagan-Goldwater roots. And the coming debate over health-care reform may clearly expose the split.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has embraced the big-government approach. He has joined Democrats in calling for universal health coverage. The plan he supported in Massachusetts is a variation of "HillaryCare." It has received most of its attention for its unprecedented individual mandate, a requirement that every Massachusetts citizen purchase health insurance or face legal penalties. This represents the first time that a state has said that a citizen, simply by virtue of living in a state, must purchase a specific government designated and designed product.

But even more significantly, Romney's plan also created a managed competition-style regulatory authority called the Massachusetts Health Care Connector. This new regulatory body has already mandated that every health-care policy sold in the state must cover prescription drugs and has outlawed policies with deductibles of more than $2,000.

And Romney has joined Democrats in spending more to subsidize health care for the poor and middle class. In Massachusetts, he significantly increased Medicaid eligibility and provided taxpayer-funded subsidies for families of four earning as much as $62,000 a year, effectively extending welfare well into the middle class.

It is very hard to reconcile Romney's vision of health-care reform with traditional small-government conservatism.

In contrast, the traditional conservative approach to health care so far is being carried by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani, who will release a detailed health-care plan later this summer, believes that the biggest problem facing American health care is not a lack of universal coverage, but a lack of consumer choice. "It's your health; you should own your own insurance," he said in Tuesday's debate. "The reality is that we need a free market."

Giuliani wants to reduce the regulation of health insurance and change federal tax law that pushes people into expensive, all-inclusive plans. He says health insurance should be more like car insurance, where people pay out of pocket for minor repairs and maintenance but are protected against catastrophic costs. In pursuit of this goal, he has called for calling for expansion of Health Savings Accounts and replacing the current tax exclusion for employer-provided health care with a standard deduction for health insurance.

This is not a question of the merits of either candidate but a fundamental question about the direction of the Republican Party and the conservative movement in general. Being a conservative Republican should be about more than abortion policy and the War on Terror. The candidates should have to tell voters whether they still believe in traditional principles of limited government, federalism and individual liberty.

The debate over health care reform may offer voters the first opportunity to ask this question.

We need a President that will elect conservative judges.

It's all about the Judges.  Republicans can not sit on their hands or we are in big trouble.

           

                      The Upcoming Presidential Election Should Be All About The Supreme Court for Social Conservatives
By John Stemberger
Monday, July 30, 2007

Big Trouble

We are in big trouble. Whether you consider the historical cycle of presidential elections; the results of the 2006 election; the mood of the country; or the unfavorable ratings of the President, the odds are that conservatives will have our heads handed to us on a silver platter in 2008. Unless our movement gets its act together quickly and gets on the same page, one thing is for sure-- we are in big trouble.

   

       
                    
        With the addition of the Supreme Court's newest member, Justice Samuel Alito Jr., top row at right, the high court sits for a new group photograph in this March 3, 2006, file photo, at the Supreme Court Building in Washington. Seated in the front row, from left to right are: Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, and Associate Justice David Souter. Standing, from left to right, in the top row, are: Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr. A new Supreme Court term opens Monday, Oct. 2, 2006, with eyes on its leader, the newest justice, the oldest and the man in the middle as the court takes on the familiar issues of abortion and race among its major cases. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

   

 

       

No Perfect Candidate

Many conservatives are frustrated by the field of candidates running for president--and understandably so. There is no perfect candidate in 2008. There is no Ronald Reagan. Even the best of conservative candidates (announced and unannounced) have political warts. We have hawks with liberal views on social issues, recent conservative converts with questionable policy histories, and social conservatives with histories of personal moral failure and others just not able to mount a viable campaign or raise money. Whether the problems are policy, personal or political in nature, all the 2008 choices have considerable weaknesses. Folks, welcome to the fallen world in which we live. As Francis Schaeffer used to say, "Things are not as they ought to be..." Actually, there was one perfect candidate-but we crucified Him 2000 years ago.

Principled Pragmatism

As principled citizens how should we now respond? Whine and complain? Protest and not vote? Let a liberal win and hope to come back in four years? None of these options are the highest or most principled expressions of our citizenship. As social conservatives, we should always wrestle with how to reconcile the tension between principle and pragmatism. If we support only what appear to be front runner candidates, we will sell our souls to be political insiders. If we support only the purist long shot candidates, we risk foolishly forfeiting any realistic opportunity to affect public policy through political change.

All The Marbles Are For the United States Supreme Court

Most of all of the great culture war issues of our day can be directly traced to bad decisions by the United States Supreme Court. Consider this: duly elected legislative branches of government are not ultimately responsible for abortion on demand, legalizing same sex marriage, protecting pornography as free speech, removing faith symbols from the public square, and undermining private property rights. Instead, these moral and social ills are the responsibility of unelected, unaccountable members of the federal judiciary who refuse to recognize their limited and restrained role as jurists and insist upon acting as social change agents.

Changing of the Guard

Between age and ailing health, most legal observers believe we are all but certain to see two, maybe three, US Supreme Court justices resign between 2009 and 2012. Since most of these justices are liberals, the 5-4 majority our opponents have enjoyed could be either dismantled or reaffirmed for the next couple of decades. In the final analysis, the 2008 election presents us with the most significant window of opportunity to change the direction of the court (and hence the culture war) that will occur over the next 15-25 years.

The Bottom Line

There are really only two equally important questions conservatives should ask about the upcoming presidential election: 1) Which candidate is most likely to pick the best judges AND 2) Which candidate is most likely to win both the primary and general elections. Every other issue is just window dressing. If we all stick together, work hard to reach a consensus and use these questions to think about the election, we might have a chance to elect a conservative who could produce historical pro-life and pro-family victories in battles many of us have been fighting all of our lives. But, if we all act independently and support our favorite sounding, best looking, or even "most conservative" candidate, well, then--did I mention? We are in big trouble.

The Dems won't stop till they get Bush

 

 

 

 

 

The Dems practice the politics of personal destruction.  Rumsfeld, Libby, now Gonzales.

         

                A Scandal monomania
By Rich Lowry
Monday, July 30, 2007

A majority is a terrible thing to waste. That's not stopping congressional Democrats.

When not trying to force a pullout from Iraq, their main effort has been chasing Bush-administration scandals that loom large only in their fevered imaginations. Democrats consider this "change," but it is really a toxic repeat of the Republican investigative onslaught against Bill Clinton in the 1990s and of the Democratic one against Ronald Reagan in the 1980s -- in other words, business as usual when Congress confronts a hated presidential adversary.

   

       
                    
        U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, right, speaks to a roundtable of local Project Safe Childhood partners, including U.S. Attorney Rodger A. Heaton of the Central District of Illinois, left, at the U.S. Attorney?s office in Springfield Ill., Friday, July 27, 2007. Gonzales listened to Illinois local law enforcement on their increased efforts to combat sexual abuse and exploitation of children. Gonzales has been on the hot seat as Congress continues to try to get to the bottom of the firings of federal prosecutors.(AP Photo//The State Journal-Register,Justin L. Fowler)

   

       

Related Media:

VIDEO:                 Gonzales Aide Admits "Crossing The Line"

VIDEO:                 Leahy: Gonzales Must Correct Mistakes

VIDEO:                 Head of FBI Contradicts Gonzales Testimony

       

The Democrats' latest tactic is to give an implicit choice to Bush officials: They can either come to Capitol Hill to testify so Democrats can try to build a perjury case against them, or they can refuse, in which case Democrats will cite them for criminal contempt of Congress. Either path leads inexorably to Democratic calls for a special counsel. Democrats love the prospect of another couple of Patrick Fitzgeralds, drumming Bush officials out of public life with onerous legal bills for their trouble.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been a particular target, and why not? He's so incapable of defending himself that, for grandstanding Democrats, cuffing him around is risk-free fun, like cruel kids pulling the wings off insects. The new perjury accusation against him is based on testimony this past week in which he often was kept from saying two sentences in a row without being interrupted and called a liar.

He tried to say that the publicly disclosed National Security Agency surveillance activity referred to as a "terrorist surveillance program" was uncontroversial within the administration, but that other, still-classified NSA activities were contentious and led to a dramatic visit to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room in 2004 to try to get them re-authorized. Between the interruptions, the difficulty of discussing classified activities in public and Gonzales' expository shortcomings, it all got garbled, but a well-intentioned person could understand his point.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's Democrats preferred to pretend that they had witnessed a flagrantly perjurious performance. Gonzales is being tormented on another front, too -- the firings of U.S. attorneys. Democrats can't explain how the administration's firing of U.S. attorneys who serve at its pleasure could be criminal, but apparently want to spend the rest of the Bush presidency hunting for evidence of this elusive wrongdoing.

A House committee subpoenaed Bush chief of staff Josh Bolten and former counsel Harriet Miers to testify, predictably drawing a White House assertion of executive privilege. President Bush would be remiss if he didn't keep his aides from being forced to reveal deliberations about such a core executive function as hiring and firing executive-branch officials. Now the House is moving toward citing these high-level White House officials for criminal contempt of Congress, an unprecedented move.

And a futile one. It has been the policy of administrations of both parties that -- on grounds of separation of powers -- U.S. attorneys won't enforce criminal contempt of Congress for assertions of executive privilege. Democrats simply could take the dispute to court. Instead, they want the contempt citations and constitutional showdown. The more headlines about subpoenas, contempt of Congress, special counsels and all the other investigative detritus, they figure, the better.

This is a grave political miscalculation. Absent a Watergate-style smoking gun, or at least some plausible whiff of gunpowder, voters aren't interested in scandal monomania. The only political effect of the investigative onslaught is to please the bloodthirsty Democratic "netroots" who are desperate for excuses to try to impeach Bush, while convincing voters that Washington is a disgusting cockpit of partisan rancor oblivious to their true concerns. There is a reason President Bush can be at 28 percent approval and still double Congress' rating in some polls.

But Democrats can't help themselves. They've held more than 600 oversight hearings so far, and these hearings are close to their only accomplishment. The Democratic majority brings to mind a paraphrase of the old saw about teaching: Those who can, legislate. Those who can't, investigate.

America is fighting a war against radical Islam

This is World War IV make no mistake.  There is no second place.  We win or we live under Sherie law.

The War Is Against Radical Islam, Not 'Terrorism,' Says Policy Expert
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
July 31, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - America is fighting a war against radical Islam, not against terrorism, and in order for the enemy to start to retreat, a U.S. victory in Iraq is critical, a Middle East expert argued Monday.

"The War on Terror is a misnomer," Jonathon Schanzer, director of policy at the conservative Jewish Policy Center, said at a conference organized by the Young America's Foundation in Washington, D.C., on Monday. "Terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy. You'll never win a war if you don't know who the enemy is."

Schanzer said the enemy facing the United States is radical Islam.

"It is incredibly difficult to separate Islam and the enemy we're fighting," he said. "Ten to 20 percent of adherents of Islam view it in a backward or violent way -- that is the enemy.

"We're looking at a population that is already larger in [size] than the entire population of the United States," Schanzer said. "We appear to be losing this battle with radical Islam.

"We've been battling this current enemy since 1979," he added, referring to the Iranian students' hostage-taking of American diplomats in Tehran. "They can look back over these last 28 years and see the exact same pattern of weakness over and over again, and that is why I would say that this has to stop right here -- that there needs to be a victory.

"In Iraq right now, we need to turn things around no matter what it takes -- more boots, more money, more of whatever it takes because there needs to be a victory," Schanzer said. "I believe that once a victory happens, we're going to start to see the forces of radical Islam retreat."

Schanzer also argued that while "radical Islam is the problem, moderate Islam is the solution."

The problem, however, is that "radical Islam has the podium," he added.

"There are extremists in all religions," countered Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). "But the way you don't go about dealing with that is making sweeping generalizations about such large groups of people."

Hooper told Cybercast News Service that Schanzer's definition of "moderate" -- like that used by other conservatives -- is skewed.

"They label those few who are outside the mainstream 'moderates' and then ask why the mainstream doesn't listen to moderates," he said.

CAIR, a "civil rights group" for American Muslims, is itself frequently accused of pursuing a radical agenda.

The Supreme Court is at balance

It's important that we select a Republican as President in '08.  The Supreme Court is in the balance.  Here is what the Dems think and will do if Hilary is elected.

Schumer: Supreme Court 'Dangerously Out of Balance'
By Evan Moore
CNSNews.com Correspondent
July 31, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts is "the most conservative in memory," and the Senate should not confirm another nominee to the bench from President Bush "except in extraordinary circumstances," in the view of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Addressing the fifth annual American Constitution Society convention Friday, Schumer said the Senate had been misled by the "charm of nominee Roberts and the erudition of nominee [Samuel] Alito."

"Our fears were more than justified from the ultra-conservative record of [those] two men," said Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Schumer's comments coincided with a new ABC News-Washington Post poll in which 31 percent of respondents said the Supreme Court was "too conservative" in its jurisprudential decision-making, an increase from 19 percent in a similar poll in 2005.

Schumer citing a remark by Justice Stephen Breyer - who was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 - said, "It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much."

"In case after case, our most recently confirmed justices have appeared to jettison decisions recently authored by their immediate predecessors," the New York Democrat said.

"The decisions this term were especially cruel, advancing the traditional conservative preferences for the government over criminal defendants and the interests of business over consumers and employees," he said.

Schumer said Senate confirmation hearings and commitments made during them "are often meaningless."

"Hearings produce a lot of sound and fury, often signifying nothing. It is too easy to evade a question. It is too easy to refuse to answer. It is too easy to be coached, and it is too easy to offer an easy platitude rather than a concrete opinion," he said.

Schumer urged the Senate to focus on a nominee's record and previous opinions.

"Senators have an obligation to scrutinize the character and philosophies of judicial nominees, and nominees have an obligation to cooperate," he said. "This is especially when a nominee's ideology, judicial philosophy and constitutional views are central considerations in the president's decision to nominate."

Schumer's concern is rooted in a widespread belief among court watchers that a member of the Supreme Court's liberal bloc will be the next to retire.

Justice John Paul Stevens is 87 years old and has served on the bench since 1975. Although Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is more than a decade younger, her frail frame and a previous battle with cancer has prompted suspicion that she is in poor health. Justice David Souter is also rumored to be seeking retirement.

On Monday, Roberts was hospitalized after taking a fall at his summer home in Maine. At 52, Roberts is the youngest justice on the bench. His predecessor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was absent for much of the 2004-2005 term, while be battled thyroid cancer.

Court-watchers respond

Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, on Monday sharply criticized Schumer for his speech.

"Schumer is adept at bluster, and he is shrewdly trying to shape the environment in case a vacancy arises," he told Cybercast News Service.

Whelan said the Roberts and Alito confirmation hearings had been productive, contrary to Schumer's assertions.

"We learned quite a bit, during Roberts' and Alito's testimony, about the quality and integrity of their Senate attackers, including Schumer ... after harshly criticizing, and voting against, both the Roberts and Alito nominations, Schumer can hardly pretend to be disappointed by their performance," he said.

"There is no inconsistency at all between their testimony and their performance [on the bench]," Whelan added.

Whelan characterized the court's rulings this term as rather modest - "a small step towards the right, and towards the center."

"After decades of liberal judicial activism on so many issues, the court's position remains decidedly on the left," he asserted.

"Thus, even if the Roberts Court were to take big strides to the right in future terms - a prospect that would require further improvements to the court's composition and rather more boldness than the new justices have so far shown - it would still merely be moving towards the center," Whelan added.

Jan Crawford Greenburg, an ABC News legal analyst, opined on her blog that while the Supreme Court had tacked to the right in this term, "some of the liberal commentary on the court since the justices packed up and left town has been almost breathtaking in its over-the-top hysteria."