Heartache......Romney favors ethanol subsidies

Nothing strikes me as dumber than putting our food into our gas tanks at a greater cost than the gas we already have, yet Mitt Romney thinks it's a good idea.....

“I support the subsidy of ethanol,” he told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.” Iowa leads the nation in the production of corn, a main source of ethanol.

You have to waste something like 10 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of ethanol. And the price of corn has gone through the roof because the government is buying up all the corn for stupid ethanol to combat imaginary global warming.

If ethanol was a competitive fuel on the market place, then great. But it's not. The government(taxpayers) must subsidize it to make it competitive. Left on it's own, it would fail utterly and completely as a fuel source.

That politicians like Romney think that any means(manipulation of economic markets) is justified to achieve their goals is disheartening at best, and horrifying at worst. Unless Romney changes his position on stupid ethanol subsidies and allows the fuel and corn markets to do what they do naturally, he'll likely not get a vote of mine because if he'll support subsidies for this, then what other violations of markets will he support? Bailouts? Single-payer health care? Illegal-alien labor?

He's too iffy for me.

Uh oh

Well this doesn't bode well for the liklihood of deposing Obama in 2012....

From MSNBC -- In a special House election carefully watched by national political strategists, Democrat Kathy Hochul won what had been a Republican seat Tuesday in upstate New York, lifting Democrats’ hopes for the 2012 campaign.

As her campaign’s centerpiece, Hochul attacked changes in the Medicare program proposed by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan.

The smear campaign against Ryan's budget proposal has already begun with an ad that shows a republican literally pushing grandma out of her wheelchair and off a cliff. If NY-26 is any indicator, republicans have an uphill battle to get seniors to not buy the tried-and-true, Medicare scare tactics employed by the democrats and the media heading into election season.

The problem America faces now is that everybody agrees that the federal budget must be slashed if we are to even think about approaching solvency and avoid defaulting on our national debt, but nobody wants programs that are important to them to get altered in any way. That craven democrats use this fear to convince less than intelligent voters to side with them is beyond reprehensible and dishonest. But then, to call a liberal reprehensible and dishonest is to repeat myself.

Herman Cain enjoys bounce in Zogby

Despite the Washington media insiders' desire for a fellow insider to be the republican nominee for President, and perhaps because of it, Herman Cain passed Chris Christie in Zogby polling yesterday. Cain has 19%, Christie who's not running has 17%, and Romney the insider at 12%.

Now anything can happen in a long election season, but I think likely GOP voters don't appreciate the conservative elites like Charles Krauthammer telling them this early that a candidate is a joke. Why is Herman Cain a joke to CK? How is he any less qualified to be President than the shifty, empty-suited socialist that's there now?

I hope Herman Cain does well in the early states and gains some momentum. I'll be happy to cast a vote for him if he turns out to be the conservative that he appears to be.

The Kraut: "Herman Cain's candidacy is for entertainment purposes"

Here The Kraut (Charles Krauthammer) on the presidential candidacy of Herman Cain....



Just like conservative elitists George Will and Peggy Noonan, CK dismisses the chances of any newcomer to the national political stage, apparently because they haven't been immersed in the Washington social scene. For some reason they are more comfortable with known candidates with whom they've clinked glasses at cocktail parties rather than outsiders.

I think an outsider like Herman Cain or Chris Christie is precisely what we need, not a go-along, compromised republican like Gingrich or Romney.

Trump's potential candidacy

I'm sure you've heard folks like Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Krauthammer, and other conservatives dismiss Donald Trump as a joke candidate and publicity hound and not fit to be President. Trump's polling numbers are very high but there's still a long time to the election. Lots can change in 18 months.

One thing that is likely not to change is the moribund state of the US economy. President Obama isn't likely to do anything positive to fix it because a weakened, hamstrung America in decline fits into his world view. Trump, on the other hand, is a business man and who better to fix money problems than a take-no-prisoners business man?

Sure, he's not a skeevy lawyer like most politicians. Nor is he politically ambitious to the point of being craven like most politicians. He's just a highly successful business man. Why is the idea of a Trump presidency any more preposterous than the presidency of a race-hustling, two-bit, street-corner pamphleteer? It's far less preposterous if you ask me. At least Trump has plenty of real-world experience creating wealth and jobs. What did Obama do before politics? He agitated the entitlement class in Chicago after skating through law school on what was probably an affirmative-action scholarship. We'll never know because he's sealed all his records.

The old-school pundits prefer the traditional next-in-line candidates to run because they are comfortable bashing them because they are a known item. Trump wouldn't care what they said. His apathy toward the media would enrage them. And that alone would be worth his being President for me.

All I'm saying is before you dismiss the idea of a Trump presidency, tell me what career politician in the field of GOP hopefuls is better suited for the job of economic recovery at hand? Remember, they're all politicians which means they are liars and cheats.

Check Haley Barbour off my list

This hesitance on the part of republican presidential hopefuls to say out loud that global warming is a farcical sham, conjured up in the fever swamps of the unhinged environmentalist movement, is very distressing to me....

From ABCNews -- CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Potential presidential candidate Haley Barbour appears to be staking out a moderate position on global warming than some of his possible rivals, saying at an event in eastern Iowa on Friday that the country should “proceed in national policy as if global warming is actually happening.”

“I think the prudent thing for us, when you consider the potential risk, the prudent thing is to proceed as if global warming is an issue,”

I'm making a list and checking it twice....and republicans are dropping off like flies. If Barbour is unwilling to say what we all know about global warming, then he's too iffy for me when it comes to putting a halt to idiotic and disastrous CO2-emissions controls based on the fantasy of lowering the temperature of Earth.

I wonder which republican will be the next to say something stupid and lose my vote?

Newt Gingrich is unelectable for one no, two reasons

As much as I respect Newt Gingrich's intellect and agree with his political positions for the most part, this one question that came from a student at the University of Pennsylvania is the reason why I think he is unelectable nationally....

From PoliticalTicker -- In a question-and-answer session, Isabel Friedman, a student at the university who's also Democratic activist, pressed Gingrich on how he squares his pro-family values with the fact he has been married three times and has admitted to two extramarital affairs.

All his dirty laundry is being kept in a media file for the time being, but when/if he starts getting traction toward the republican nomination, and assuming other republicans don't cannabolize him with this dirt, the media hounds will drag this stuff out and hammer him with it until he's too distracted and damaged from having to address daily, questions about his two extramarital affairs. Then the media will have done what they always try to do, destroy conservatives on the issue of hypocrisy. Only this time, the candiate will have done it to himself.

Christie could get elected President despite not wanting the job

NJ Governor Chris Christie keeps insisting that he's not running for President in 2012, citing reasons like "I'm not ready", "there's work left to do in NJ", and "the timing isn't right". Sometimes Gov. Christie, rather than waiting for the right time, the times call you to serve. I think this might by one of those rare times when the right candidate coincides with the right time, when a nation needs to change directions in a dramatic way.

How refreshing would it be to have a President who had to be dragged into office more or less against his will? For whom serving is a burden rather than a goal in and of itself? I think Christie might be the only man right now who can challenge the two-bit, street-corner pamphleteer we call President.

Maybe it's not the right time for Christie, maybe it's the right time for America.

Scratch Newt from your list of potential GOP nominees

It was bad enough when he sat on that ridiculous couch with Nancy Pelosi and lectured us little people about environmental whackoism, now Newt Gingrich is running around Iowa shilling for the idiotic ethanol industry.

The absurd notion of taxpayers being fleeced of their paychecks to subsidize the ethanol industry which couldn't exist on its own, so that drivers can put our food supply into our gas tanks, all to save polar bears and combat a non-existent phenomenon -- man-made global warming -- to me disqualifies Newt Gingrich from any possible consideration for the GOP nomination. He'd serve us much better on the lecture circuit, criticizing liberals from the sidelines. I cannot in good conscious vote for anybody who supports government ethanol subsidies.

UPDATE: Scratch Ambassador to China, John Huntsman too. He thinks the stimulus wasn't big enough. With republicans like these, who needs democrats?

Romney ignores the tea parties at his own peril

Apparently while most other declared or likely 2012 GOP POTUS candidates happily interact with the tea parties in various states, presidential want-to-be Mitt Romney is keeping the Mass. tea party at arms length. I'm not sure what his calculation is but my sense it that he's doing it at his own peril.

Clearly the tea parties wield considerable and demonstrable electoral power and neglecting to woo them is a dangerous game to be playing if one entertains national elected-office ambitions. It's probably that Romney is an old-school republican and he's essentially re-running the 2008 election, calculating that if he can win over the moderate center, he can afford to ignore what he perceives as the radical right tea-party caucus. What his handlers have failed to tell him is that the tea parties occupy both the center and right bases. Having broad appeal is good, but it's not necessary to alienate half of the base while posturing as a centrist to win the other half.

If Romney is the nominee, I guess I'll have to hold my nose and vote like I did with J.Mac but I won't like it. I don't want to have to cast another vote for a luke-warm centrist who's already lost a national nomination. Romney thinks it's his turn to be the GOP nominee. That's how these old-school guys think. He had his shot. Time for some new, untainted blood.

Pence throws down the 2012 gauntlet?

I think Mike Pence just threw his hat in the ring for President in 2012. By casting a difficult "no" vote on the dreadful, pork-laden tax bill, he has served notice to Obama, beltway republicans, and tea-party voters that he's sticking to his guns when it comes to limiting unnecessary federal spending....

From Hotair -- “At the end of the day, I’ve just come to the conclusion: the American people did not vote for more stimulus,” Pence said on conservative talker Sean Hannity’s radio show. “Therefore, I will not vote for this tax deal when it comes to the floor of the House of Representatives.”

I like this guy more and more every time I hear him. If he continues to stick to the constitutional, limited government ideals he ran on and that are exhibited by this "no" vote, he could easily defeat Obama and the other moderate republicans who're running too. I can see a Pence/Palin, or Palin/Pence ticket sweeping the nation.

Will she or won't she?

Over at TheDailyBeast Matt Latimer has an interesting take on why Sarah Palin will definitely run for president in 2012. Here's an excerpt....

One of the great ironies of the GOP's current political success is that it is in large part driven by thousands, if not millions, of people who detest it. Palin benefits from the yawning frustration with a GOP hierarchy that Tea Partiers and party conservatives believe has lost its principles, commitment to fiscal and personal responsibility, and sense of direction.

"Robbing" their favorite of the 2012 nomination, at least without seeming to have given her a fair chance, may be something the party deeply regrets, especially if her millions of alienated, and fed up, followers stay home. Besides, Palin followers argue, would the party really be that much better off with a field of helplessly bland, middle-aged white males with the excitement of a ShamWOW! infomercial.

He's right. Do we want another election season to go by trying, and failing, to get excited about Romney and all the other carbon copies of Romney? I realize there is still the aging GOP establishment to win over but huge voter enthusiasm has a tendency of doing that. The only thing I worry about is if she loses early and badly, the Palin brand may be permanently damaged, and she's got a bright future doing exactly what she's been doing for the last two years.....raising money and support for strong, tea-party candidates and advancing conservative agenda items to the front of the national political discussion. The media will try to destroy her like they've never destroyed a candidate before and that would be hard to watch.

GOP should not be distracted by social cons

In the wake of the Tea Party-inspired midterm victories, small government, economic conservatives are worried that the GOP will now return to it's habit of focusing on social issues and ignore the mandate from the voters to focus instead on reducing the federal government, lowering taxes, and generally getting the government out of our lives. To that end, the GOProud group, a gay conservative organization, penned an open letter to GOP congressional leadership urging them to stick to their charge and stay away from social issues.....

From Politico -- "When they were out in the Boston Harbor, they weren't arguing about who was gay or who was having an abortion," said Ralph King, a letter signatory who is a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member, as well as an Ohio co-coordinator.

I couldn't agree more. Insisting that "conservative" = dogmatic adherence to party-defined ideas of morality and personal behavior is a losing position for republicans. With the country heading toward the economic abyss and the government becoming intractably large, quixotically worrying about gay marriage, abortion, the war on drugs, Internet content, or whether women can own sex toys(all are associated with republican busy-bodies) is losing sight of their election-day mandate.

My advice to republicans in congress: do not take for granted the reliable and dutiful votes of Tea-Party conservatives. If you abdicate your responsibility to fulfill your campaign promises, the ire of the tea parties will be at you in two years, not Obama.

Despite midterm loss, Obama will move leftward

With most of the blue-dog democrats in congress losing in the midterms, the resultant democrat contingency is decidedly more liberal and the lefties are pushing Obama to maintain the ground they seized in his first two years and toward a more liberal policy agenda for his next two....

From WashingtonPost -- On the heels of the Democratic Party's huge losses in last week's midterm elections, liberal activists have begun planning to push President Obama on a series of issues, demanding that he not cede any ground to Republicans.

Let's hope they succeed in facilitating his leftward course. The GOP is already looking to gain more seats in the house and senate, and maybe even win the presidency too. There could be no greater gift to republicans than for ideologues in the democrat party to keep on doing the same things that lost them the house two weeks ago. Doubling down on a losing strategy is still a losing strategy....it's just more fun for us conservatives to watch.

Nancy Pelousy, the gift that keeps on giving

Despite the resounding democrat, midterm defeat, as much a referendum on Nancy Pelosi's dispicableness as Pres. Obama's ineptitude and incompetence, SanFranNan is angling for the #1 leadership role as Minority Leader. Let's hope that democrats are dumb enough to keep her as the face of the democrat party going forward. For republicans heading into 2012, waking up to "minority leader Pelosi" will be like Christmas morning every day.

GOP to Tea Party..."Get to the back of the bus"

Establishment republicans to Tea Party conservatives in the House, "Thanks for your support suckers, but we'll take it from here"......

From FoxNews -- Self-proclaimed tea party leader Michele Bachmann's bid for a top Republican post in the House received a cool reaction Thursday from Speaker-to-be John Boehner, an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners in Tuesday's elections.

The GOP needs to be bending way over to kiss some Tea-Party ass right about now. Without constitutional conservatives running against entrenched politicians in both parties and rank-and-file conservatives voting GOP, most of these election wins wouldn't have happened. Boehner's likely snub of Michelle Bachmann may signal a rift in the GOP between the establishment, old-boy network and the new blood that handed them the power they'll soon enjoy.

If popular Tea Party representatives like Bachmann aren't allowed to have positions of responsibility and power within the republican caucus, Tea Party voters will know that they've been played for suckers and may not show up in 2012 as reliable republican votes. Nor should they.

Democrats are seething today

Here's what my wife's very good, democrat friends sent to her by e-mail today...



Their relationship has always been apolitical for the most part, or at least politically cordial, so why the bitter resentment? I think democrats are upset with Obama that he hasn't done more and they resent the glee with which Tea Party conservatives seized the election dialogue. They see that the age of Obama is over and their hopes and dreams of a social welfare-state utopia have been dashed once and for all on the jagged rocks of Tea Party conservatism.

Still, you hate to see long-time friendships irreparably harmed by political disagreements.

You can't win 'em all

OK all you pot-addled retards in California, your state is an economic disaster area and you install as Governor, a high-tax, union thug. His brand of leadership is what got you in the mess you're in. He's not going to rein in the quasi-criminal unions in your state or trim the budget, he's going to raise every body's taxes to hand over to them. The producers will continue to flee your state and California will finally crumble completely and become the utter calamity that you've just asked for by electing Brown.

I'd be laughing harder at your self-destructive, abject stupidity but when you inevitably collapse, you'll take the rest of the country with you. Don't be so sure about receiving that federal bailout Arnold's been hinting at. You don't deserve it and I doubt Boehner is in the mood to allow it.

PSA from your TRR management team

Alright dorks, be late for work, skip lunch, leave early, or tell your boss you're running an errand for the office if you have to, just don't fail to vote today. It's your civic duty.

And who knows, you might meet somebody.

All you need to know about the main stream media

As you've probably heard by now, the CBS news affiliate in Alaska was caught on tape conspiring to sabotage Joe Miller's campaign by finding a child molester or registered sex offender in a crowd of thousands, and tweet that the guy represents the typical Miller supporter. They hoped that the ensuing controversy would propel Lisa Murkowsky into a win on Tuesday. Do you people grasp the seriousness of this? These are news reporters conniving to seriously and intentionally harm the subject of their reporting.

When the media are willing to go to such means to help their favorite politician get elected, cowardly hiding behind the "we're just reporting the news" charade, a republic cannot long stand, for the democratic process depends on an aggressive and fair media to provide it with information and hold politicians equally accountable. When the media choose sides, it throws the whole system out of whack.

Or you can see how Sarah Palin aptly responded on Chris Wallace's show.....



"Corrupt bastards!" I couldn't agree more.

Exit question: By a show of hands, how many think the main-stream media cover this story and will any, ANY CBS personnel in Alaska be fired for this outrage?