A Little Twat and a Whole Lot of Controversy - When Republicans Are Their Own Worst Enemies

Bob Fitzsimmons, Treasurer of the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) used the word twat in a facebook discussion a few nights ago.  Twat in case you don't know is sometimes used as slang for the female vulva.  

Now, I am not going to sit here and defend the use of that word.  It never should have been used.  The problem is that if you read the exchange in context, he was referring to the comment that someone else had made as ridiculous.  He used the wrong.  Obviously he isn't up on sexual slang words.  He should have used the word twaddle, which means stupid speech.  

Now, what you can't see in the above graphic is the comment he was answering.  That comment was about why Delegate Barbara Comstock should be the nominee in the hotly contested republican primary simply based on the fact that she is a woman.  His comment was about identity politics.  I am not sure who, if anyone, he is backing in this contest, but I can tell you that I support Barbara.  I like Barbara.  I have worked many a days knocking doors in her elections for the state delegate seat that she currently holds.  But I don't support her simply based on the fact that she is a woman.  I HATE identity politics.  It is a losing game and I have little respect for people who voted based upon gender, skin color, or financial status of the people in the race.  To me that is the democrats game and played a big part in why President Obama won his election.  On this Mr. Fitzsimmons and I agree.  We are never going to beat the democrats in that game, so lets put up the best possible candidate in each and every race.  I happen to believe that Barbara is that person.  Her voting record speaks for itself.  At the end of the day that is what really matters.  

What really sits in craw about this entire unfortunate episode is that people who don't like Mr. Fitzsimmons, for reasons ranging from he is a supporter of conventions over primaries (which I am not) and he is also a big supporter of Ken Cuccinelli and more libertarian leaning people, have used this to try and force him from his job.  Insert primal scream here.  

This has turned into a national story that has been on HuffPo and in The Washington Post simply because people, who I won't mention by name, even though I would bet my bottom dollar are involved, are using this to oust someone they disagree with.  

The man made a mistake.  He used an unfortunate word when he wasn't clear on the meaning.  There is no way that anyone reading what he wrote can misconstrue that he was calling Delegate Comstock a twat or even the young woman he was having the discussion with that word.  

Here is the post he was responding to with the name of the person not included:

I also think women are going to be very frustrated about about a man trying to usurp Barbara's position in this race. If women come out in force for her, it will create a battle cry for Republican women so loud that Howie Lind won't have a prayer of competing with her. Republican women are a force to be reconed with and I for one want to see this power harnessed effectively in key political races.

His response was the he doesn't like sexist twat.  Now, if he was talking about this woman or Barbara it would make sense that you would be able to replace the word with the name and it would still make sense.  But you can't do that in this case.  Because he wasn't referring to a person, he was referring to the thought of using identity politics.  

So, now we have a national story about how republican men and party officials were using sexual terms to talk about a woman when clearly that isn't what happened.  

We don't need the democrats to do anything, we are doing a bang up job all on our own.  Should he have apologized for using that word?  Absolutely.  Should he lose his job over it?  No, a very clear and unambiguous NO.  This has been blown out of proportion by people who don't like him and his stances.  Those are the people who should be called out in all of this.  Not a man who obviously needs to spend more time with a dictionary.  

I Don't Think WashPo has Enough Pinocchio's For this Whopper From President Obama - President Obama Denies Saying "You Can Keep Your HealthPlan"

Um, no that isn't what you said.  Does he not realize that virtually every public statement he makes is videotaped?



I wonder how many Pinocchio's WashPo is going to give him for this one?

My Post Election Rant

Obviously I am very disappointed in the results from election night.  So much so, that I really have not had the heart to even write this.  But, Kathleen Parker got me out of that and quickly too.

The truth is, Romney was better than the GOP deserved. Party nitwits undermined him, and the self-righteous tried to bring him down. The nitwits are well-enough known at this point — those farthest-right social conservatives who couldn’t find it in their hearts to keep their traps shut. No abortion for rape or incest? Sit down.Legitimate rape? Put on your clown suit and go play in the street.
Equally damaging were the primary leeches who embarrassed the party and wouldn’t leave the stage. Nine-nine-nine, we’re talking about you, Herman Cain. And Gov. Oops? You, too. And then there were Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, who never had a real shot at the nomination and certainly could never win a national election, yet they refused to surrender to the certain nominee.
Did they have a right to persist in their own fantasies? Sure. But not if they were serious about getting a Republican in the White House. Thus, for months and months, Romney had to spend his energy and, as important, his money to prevail in the primaries against opponents who had no chance and who ultimately hurt him. During that same precious time, Obama’s campaign was busy pinpointing specific voters, practically learning the names of their dogs, and buying ads in niche markets.

Wow, so it is my fault.  Not that I am even "furthest right" when it comes to social issues. I have made no bones about it, I didn't like Mitt Romney as the nominee.  I have been saying for over a year that had he got the nomination he would lose.  I didn't even think that because of his wishy washiness on social issues.  To me social issues are not really the purview of the federal government, and I don't care which side is trying to make the case that they are.  You cannot legislate your sense of morality onto someone else, it comes from within.   That said, people still want to see that you have core convictions.

I also have seen many of the more moderate republicans all across social media blaming the tea party and SoCons.  Really?  I will say it again, I didn't like Romney as the nominee.  I didn't want to vote for him.  When push came to shove, I went out and I did it.  Not only did I vote for him, I went out and worked my ass off trying to get him elected.  I spent the final six weeks of the cycle on trains, planes, and automobiles crisscrossing the country from swing state to swing state.  I spent 7 to 8 hours per day knocking on doors, then spend another few hours making phone calls.  I did this in close to freezing temperatures and pouring rain one more than one occasion.  I slept in hotel that I had to keep changing rooms because of bugs.  Don't tell me that I didn't take one for the team.

Every Tea Party minded person I know personally did similar things as well.  Americans for Prosperity, one of the tea party umbrella groups, helped get people like me out to swing states.  Do you think that Romney was their initial choice?  Not likely, but we will never know as they don't endorse candidates.  But, you still saw them working night and day on the GOTV effort.  Like me, they understood the stakes.

Now, what did the squishy middle do?  Were they there?  Did the same people who are throwing this blame around at people like me get out from in front of their computers and make the same personal sacrifices that I made?  Many of the ones that I know didn't.  They sat around posting things through social media to people who already agreed with them.  Boy, that was helpful.

One thing that was proven without a doubt is that the moderate wing of the party cannot the presidency without the crazies from the far right.  To the people who believe that all life is sacred and is worth fighting for.  I will admit that some go too far for my tastes.  I refuse to engage with people who show horrific pictures of dead babies and ask me if I think it is ok to rip babies out of their mothers wombs.  That is emotional blackmail.  But, if you think that same tactic isn't used on the left you are sadly mistaken.  They take one person out 45,000 that has some obscure sob story and then tries to pass a law that forces everyone in the country to change their life in order to accommodate their plea of the day.  While of course the opposite is true as well.  But I am sick to death of hearing that I caused the loss of the senate and I am somehow personally responsible for Romney's loss.

I was there, I was in a tightly contested county in a swing state on election day.  No kidding, they had me knocking on doors that already had literature on it.  I called and told them that this was happening.  I was told to just keep going.  I walked seven miles on election day, going door to door.  At one point I had to find a woody area so I could go to the bathroom because I knew that one of the drivers wouldn't be able to get me in time, I was so far out from the victory office.  Luckily I had napkins with me.

After returning from day of door knocking I was making calls all day.  I was calling Minnesota.  You know what, 3 out 5 calls were wrong numbers due to bad area codes.  How the heck is that my fault?  Didn't the campaign bother to update the phone lists?  Apparently not.  The campaign is denying the story of software they created for the GOTV effort, but I can tell it was true, at least in Ohio.  It wasn't working properly.

Where was the Romney campaign in Wisconsin?  Why didn't they use the popularity of Paul Ryan as the hometown boy with the all the advantages they had with Governor Walker's grassroots efforts?  They didn't put enough resources in that state.  That is my fault how?

I am sick to death of hearing that my voice shouldn't matter in the party.  That my views are somehow less important than theirs.  That I should be giving up on my principles to tack left.  Because heaven knows that is what the democrats do when they lose elections.  They moderate.

I happen to believe that we need immigration reform in this country.  But I am not willing to sell out my principles in order to get it.  The facts are President Reagan signed immigration reform decades ago, did that help bring Hispanics into the party?  No it did not.  Did the democratically controlled congress keep their end of the bargain?  If they had we wouldn't have millions more in the country.  Read the law that Reagan signed Ms. Parker.  The borders were supposed to be secured.  The law was supposed to go after employers that violated the law by giving any additional positions to illegals, oh excuse me, undocumented workers.  None of that has happened.  So I am supposed to put my trust into the democrats doing the same again?  I guess if I am stupid I should.

What people like you Ms. Parker are really saying is that my views matter so little that I should be just cast aside.  Lets also take a stroll down memory lane of the past few GOP presidential candidates.  McCain, a moderate.  Dole, a moderate, Bush I who governed as a moderate and destroyed the yacht industry while president.  An industry that all these decades that has never come back, and never will.  Thanks to his "luxury" tax thousands upon thousands lost their jobs, companies went out of business, and America, once the #1 exporter of said yachts is now the #1 importer.  The industry died and it cost the tax payers millions and millions of dollars.  Yes, that is the leadership that the right should be looking for.

President Bush 2 is the only one of them that was ran as conservative unabashedly.  He was successful not just once, but twice.  Now, he still ended up with big government polices and spent money like a drunken sailor (sorry to all you drunken sailors) that has gotten us to the point where we are now.  Above and beyond all the money and the big government policies that President Bush promoted and acted upon during his presidency, his biggest sin was acting like you are suggesting.   He rolled over and allowed the left to control the narrative.  He didn't fight back on all the lies.  He felt that the presidency shouldn't be used in that way.  While in theory I agree with him on that.  I, to have a great deal of respect for the office of the presidency, but times have changed.  We have 24 hour news cycles and cable channels that do nothing but spit out a point of view and will use lies if necessary to promote their agenda.  That must be countered and countered hard.  His refusal to do it, is a big part of the reason we even have a President Obama.  So no, Ms. Parker I reject your advice.  The protection of religious liberties matter.  I will fight for them from shore to shore in this country.  The word marriage has meaning.  If gay marriage was simply about benefits, the problems would have been solved years ago.  If DADT tell was simply about serving in the military we would not have seen people in uniforms marching in Gay Pride parades this year, even though that is clear violation of military code of conduct.  You wouldn't see gay couples suing conservative churches to perform marriage ceremonies.  They are trying to say that my beliefs are bad, that there is something inherently wrong with them.  I don't care what a gay couple does in the privacy of their bedrooms, but I do care what they are trying to do to my church.  They want tax write-offs and hospital visitation fine.  But stay out of my place of worship.

Did it ever occur to you Ms. Parker that Romney was never able to make the connection to voters?  Did it ever occur to you that he never gave a coherent reason of why he should be president other than he wasn't Obama?  Now that was more than enough for me, but for the low information voter it wasn't.  Most people don't like change just for the sake of change.  They will dance with the devil they know.  That is part of human nature.  Did it every occur to you that people in this country don't want to elect someone who is wealthy as he is?  The left, that you seem all too willing to model after, has done a great job in creating a society that wealth is a bad thing, that people with money are ogres, evil, and someone who isn't compassionate.

People in this country want conviction Ms. Parker.  Romney didn't show that he really had that.  People want real conviction because it is a sign of leadership.  Stop blaming me and put the blame where it belongs, on the left who have convinced people that anyone that dares calls themselves a republican, or gasp even worse a conservative, lacks compassion and is racist.   Look in the mirror Ms. Parker, because you yourself have bought into that argument.

Quote of the Day - Washington Post Commenter Edition

If Sandusky had murdered all the victims, he would be facing basically the same punishment. Why did none of the victims complain, or anyone else for that matter, for 30 years? Because nobody thought it was very serious. Now the fanatics have their say. Unfortunatelly this area of law is dominated by fanatics, religious fundamentalists to whom anything vaguely or remotely connected to sex shoud be banned and severly punished, anti abortion, anti pornography, anti Playboy, go back to Puritanism mind set.

Commentary under the story about Jerry Sandusky being found guilty of 45 out 48 charges of child molestation.  

There is no way to know if this is a male or female, but seriously?  Does this idiot think that young kids are to blame for not coming forward?  Sandusky was a well-respected man in the community.  This is exactly what child predators do; they pick very vulnerable children who have troubled backgrounds and sometimes troubled families.  It makes far less likely they will be believed.  People who do these things to children are very cunning.  Which is exactly what makes them so dangerous.  

A man saw another grown man having sex with a child in a locker room shower.  Does he think that the a young man wants to have sex in a public shower with a man who was close to three times his age?  

This is how sick our society has become.  Bash religion at every single turn.  I would like to think that virtually everyone in this country could at least say hey grown men having sex with children is wrong.  Rape is wrong.  But alas, that isn't true.  The degradation of our society continues and it seems like it is picking up steam with every passing day.  

Quote of the Day - Dana Milbank Edition

I had high hopes for President Obama’s speech on the economy. But instead of going to Ohio on Thursday with a compelling plan for the future, the president gave Americans a falsehood wrapped in a fallacy.

Ouch.  From WashPo no less.  Oh my, has President Obama lost his mojo?  


H/T to Jill at Pundit and Pundette   

Quote of the Day - Washington Post Edition

 As we said before, we understand the need for symbolism. But that does not give a president license to stretch the facts.

Calling out the Republicans at the Brent Spence bridge was bad enough, given the bipartisan support for its reconstruction. But pointing to the Sherman Milton Bridge, which already has been repaired without funding from the president’s jobs bill, is ridiculous.

 Perhaps the president was using outdated talking points, but that’s little excuse. Given that the president earned Three Pinocchios before, we have little choice but to up the ante this time.

 Washington Post on President Obama's transportation and jobs bill speech Monday.  I understand it is hard for him to fathom this, but the states fixed the bridge themselves without using federal money.  The horror.

If Obama Loses WaPo Does the Rest of the Country Follow?

Is President Obama losing WaPo? They don't seem all too thrilled with how he is handling the situation in Libya.

Mr. Obama has spoken only once in public about the Libyan crisis. He has yet to condemn Mr. Gaddafi by name. He has not called for an end to the regime. He has expressed concern about protecting U.S. citizens - most of whom were evacuated from Libya on Friday - but has showed no intention of protecting the Libyans whom Mr. Gaddafi is slaughtering. The White House appears content to allow France and other nations to take the lead. But the reality is that as long as the president of the United States remains passive, the help Libyans are begging for will not come.

Not only did they go after the president, they also spoke some truth about the U.N.

But by late Friday the most notable measure he had announced was the dispatch of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a discussion at the feckless and discredited U.N. Human Rights Council - on Monday

Wow! That is a sentence that will make the heart of any conservative go all a flutter. While I am sure that they wouldn't want to go as far as I would and stop giving our hard-earned tax dollars to an organization that is Anti-Semitic among many other things. The United Nations has become a joke. The fact that they Libya on the council for human rights says everything that anyone needs to hear. They have long ago walked away from the original charter (which I fully support) and have fallen to corruption and bigotry to do its business.


It seems that President Obama has decided that he is going to follow behind the U.N. and Nato. Two organizations that can't seem to do much of anything unless the U.S. leads. So, I guess the people of Libya will continue to be slaughtered in the streets until Obama figures out what should be as plain as the nose on his face. He wanted to be the leader of the free world, so isn't it time that he stands up and leads?


Read the whole piece here, you won't be disappointed.

The Minions Speak Up about a Sucess Story

PJ Mom posted about a letter written in The Washington Post about the school voucher program.  Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that I have written about school choice many times and about the scholarship program in DC in particular.  This is an issue that I am very passionate about.  My feelings are that there is not point in saving our country if the next generation is a bunch of idiots.  Our failing public school systems is a issue of both national and economic security.  We cannot stay competitive on the world stage if our young are not educated. 

Let's take a look at the comments to this very thoughtful letter of a proud mom and her newly confident daughter.  A daughter that is now applying for college, something that her family didn't think was possible only five short years ago:

Great. Now what about those kids who are left behind, in schools with even less money and even less support? Parents who are working three jobs just to get by, and can't afford to send their kids to private schools even with the vouchers? Kids who are atheists or of minority religions in an area where the only private schools are religious? Are those kids less important, less deserving than Jerlisa?


How about we try to make education work for EVERY kid, not just those fortunate enough to get a voucher and to be able to make up the difference between the voucher and the private school's tuition?

The children remaining in public schools are not losing money, they don't need money for students that are not there.  The public schools still get just as much money per student as they would without the voucher program.  My answer is close down every failing public school in DC and give them all vouchers.  We would save money and give these kids a better education.  What this woman is really saying is that no one deserves a better education.  All the kids in the DC public school system should fail.  I guess with liberal logic that is fair. 

The government is in the business of supporting the government. Any diversion of funds to the people is wrong and immoral. Those $7500 should have been given to the teachers union where it would have been properly spent on political contributions to keep the whole game going. Any expenditure of education funds on children is a complete waste and probably illegal

I am hoping that this is snark. 

These voucher schemes are nothing more than an attempt to starve public education.


At at time when our public schools (as well as state and local governments nationwide) are facing unprecedented cutbacks and budget slashings, we should be focused on how to provide more resources for our public schools and our children, not less.

Public education is to provide education to ALL students - not just a few. It is time for home schoolers, private schoolers, right-wingers, and other Anti-public school zealots to stop their full-scale assault on public schools and to stop trying to rob public schools of much needed funds and students.

See, I think it is time that union leaders and far left liberals stop forcing children into bad school systems and failing them at every level.  Why do we have teenagers that only read at elementary school levels?  The public school system is not working in every area of the country.  They just don't.  Instead of throwing good money after bad, lets fix the problems.  How many kids are we going to fail with this logic?  We gave the unions and the department of education 4 decades to improve our schools.  They are not getting better, matter of fact we are falling further behind.  How many more decades to keep to a failing plan in order to make the unions happy?  I guess forever to some. 

WaPo's Take on Fair Game

The Washington Post has gone as far to use it's editorial page to take to task the recently released Fair Game, the story of Joe and Valerie Plame Wilson.  The movie is based on the separate autobiographies of each.  WaPo has gone as far as to call the movie Hollywood Myth Making. 

The movie keeps up the pretense that it was President Bush and his administration that caused the problems that incurred after the outing of Plame's work with the CIA.  This simply isn't the case, it is very well known that Richard Armitage, an employee of the State Department, that was the source used by the late Robert Novak.  The movie uses actual footage of the players in the Bush administration to prove it's point. 

While I am not going to diminish what happened to the Wilson family after that article was written, it seems that the Wilson's still take no responsibility for their part in it.  The reason it became the talk of the day is because Wilson himself made it a mega media item.  At the beginning Wilson had no way of knowing that the leaker had the same view of the war on Iraq that he had. 

What is very sad about this type of movie making is that this will become the belief of many people.  All too often we find that people will watch a movie that is "based on the true story" and do no further research on the subject.  The movie allows viewers to still see Scooter Libby as the bad guy instead of the fall guy that is reality. 

While this doesn't really come as a surprise since many myths still exist on the war in Iraq.  The meme still exists that Bush lied his way into the war.  Most of that narrative is just about covering your ass by politico's on the left that not only voted to allow the use of force but also made public statements that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  They further this by misleading people to believe that it was well-known that WMD didn't exist.  The reality is not that other countries believed that weapons didn't exist, they felt that Saddam was "contained", whatever that meant. 

Regardless of where you fall on our intervention in Iraq the facts are the facts.  I personally never had a strong opinion on the war.  I could see both sides.  Saddam was a very bad man who ruled his people with an iron fist, but so are many other dictators around the world.  So, why take out him and leave others?  We had a chance after the first gulf war to help the Iraqi people stage an uprising that could have led to a coup.  The first President Bush balked and walked away and many were killed because of his inaction.  If we were unwilling then, why do it now?  That was one of the things that went into thought process during the lead up to the war.  But, if a democracy can take hold in that part of the world, we will all be safer. 

While I have a great deal of sympathy for the disruption that Novak's column caused the Wilson's lives, I don't think that allows them to rewrite history.  I applaud WAPO for taking that head on.  Sadly, if the comments at the end of the article are any indication it won't change the views of those on the left.  But, for journalistic integrity those falsehoods had to be confronted.  No matter how inconvenient it is for the left, the reality is that Saddam wanted the world to be believe that he had weapons.  What we all should be up in arms about is why our intelligence is not better. 


Cross posted at PotLuck

Healthcare Law Sees it's First Day of Court

Yesterday, the commonwealth of Virginia had its first court hearing on the case Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II v. Kathleen Sebelius.  The case rests on the federal government forcing an individual to purchase a product or face a fine is a violation of the constitution. 

The first issue that has to be decided does Virginia have status to file the suit.  Virginia passed a law protecting individuals from having to purchase health care insurance.  The law was done on the grounds of the tenth amendment, giving rights to the states. 

The judge that is hearing this case is Henry Hudson, a Bush appointee.  He has said he will be deciding if the case can move forward within 30 days.  The case will then be appealed at the district level and then should wind its way to the Supreme Court.  This case is moving at lightening speed.  The other cases filed by 20 other attorneys general is expected to be heard until September. 

Hudson did ask some pointed questions of both sides.  The attorney for the Commonwealth of Virginia argued that inactivity does not qualify as commerce;

"No post-modernist playing with language can turn inactivity into economy activity affecting interstate commerce,"

the judge asked the federal attorney to give an example of when the government has forced an individual to purchase a product in the past. 

The response was that since all people will use health care at some point;

Gershengorn responded that health care is unlike other products because everyone eventually consumes it. He said Congress was merely trying to regulate how it is paid for.

Via The Washington Post

Even The Washington Post Doesn't Like This Bill

Saturday, November 7, 2009






MUCH OF the criticism of the health-care measure before the House of Representatives is overwrought. Another part is simply wrong. Unfortunately, that does not mean that this is a good bill. As we have said, it does not do enough to control costs, and it is not funded in a sustainable way. Expanding coverage for the uninsured is imperative, but so, too, is getting the country on a credible fiscal path.






As an example of the hyperbole, take the ludicrous assertion by Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) that the Democratic measure "is the greatest threat to freedom that I've seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington." Come on. The proposal has been endorsed by the American Medical Association and the AARP, hardly wild-eyed radicals.






As an example of the simply wrong, take the assertions that the measure would result in insurance subsidies for illegal immigrants and federal financing of abortions. The House bill explicitly states that illegal immigrants are not eligible for federal insurance subsidies or to enroll in the public option. Although the language is being negotiated, the bill would, unlike the Senate Finance Committee version, permit illegal immigrants to purchase insurance on their own through the newly created exchanges. This should be welcomed, not discouraged. Fewer uninsured people means less uncompensated care costs dumped on hospitals, and it would bring younger, healthier people into the exchanges. In other words, the illegal immigrants would be helping the federal treasury, not draining it.






The controversy over abortion funding is similarly phony. Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or where the life of the mother is endangered. The House bill would leave that restriction in place. It would exclude abortion from the list of benefits that plans participating in the insurance exchange would be required to offer. Instead, the exchanges would have to include one plan that covers abortion, along with one that doesn't. Even so, the plans that cover abortion would have to take steps to make sure that federal funds are segregated from those used to pay for abortions.


Now to our concerns. The measure would cover 36 million more Americans, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That would be a major achievement. And yet: At what cost? The CBO says that the measure would be fully paid for -- in fact, it would bring in money -- both during the first 10 years and in the following decade. But will the planned cuts to Medicare spending be implemented -- or will they be abandoned once they start to pinch? That is a risk, and the measure does not include enough other ways to get health-care costs under control. The bill would help spur needed changes in Medicare reimbursements to reward quality rather than quantity of care. But it is missing two important elements that the Senate Finance Committee bill begins to address: a commission to remove at least some of the politics from the business of determining Medicare payment policies and a tax on high-cost insurance plans. The House bill instead taxes the rich, tapping revenue that will be needed to narrow the overall federal deficit.






The House will probably pass the bill. But there's a lot of work to be done before its final enactment will be possible -- or desirable.