Conservative Happenings

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Allen West: ‘The nature of conservatism is that it sees no color’

Allen West headed to Amsterdam Tuesday to embark on National Review’s conservative summer cruise, saying he owes his success as a “young black man” to the nature of his character.

“I was invited to be a guest speaker with a premier assembly of conservative thinkers,” the Republican wrote. “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be proud to know that a young black man born and raised in his same neighborhood rose based upon character. It is this equality of opportunity that is great about America … not President Obama’s phony rhetoric of inequality which is no more than equality of outcomes — social egalitarianism.”

Mr. West has been particularly vocal about racial tension since George Zimmerman was acquitted more than two weeks ago in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

“I would hope William F. Buckley Jr. and Dr. King are smiling above as the embodiment of conservatism and the civil rights movement has come to fruition. The nature of conservatism is that it sees no color. The nature of liberal progressivism is that color is all it sees,” he concluded.

On Sunday, Mr. West wrote, “as conservatives, we don’t care about the color of your skin, we care about the color of our flag.”

The National Review cruise sets sail on Holland American Line’s ms Eurodam on Thursday from Amsterdam and tours the Norwegian fjords. Speakers include founding editor Jonah Goldberg, Rich Lowry, United Press International’s John O’Sullivan, John H. Sununu and Cal Thomas. The ship returns to Amsterdam on Aug. 8.

Via: The Washington Times

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Rubio Mockingly Compares ObamaCare To New Coke: At Least Coca-Cola Realized People Hated It

The fight over ObamaCare continues in Congress, and today Florida senator Marco Rubio drew an analogy between the relative unpopularity of the health care law and a widely unpopular product that was so disliked the company that made it had to stop production and go back to the classics. Yes, Rubio thought ObamaCare could take a lesson in public relations from Coca-Cola during the infamous New Coke disaster of the 1980s.

Rubio said on the Senate floor today that the health care law’s backers should “not continue to double and triple down on this thing,” and proceeded to explain what New Coke was and how much of a “disaster” it created for Coca-Cola. New Coke is one of the biggest product backfires of all time, and drew an analogy between the backlash to that product and the new health care law.

“What did Coca-Cola do when New Coke began to flounder? They didn’t say, ‘Well, we’re just gonna continue to make more of it.’ They backed away from it. They went back to the original formula. They learned from their mistake, and they didn’t double down. That’s the way it is in the real world. That’s the way it is in our lives, and that’s the way it is in the private sector, but not government! Not Washington!”

Several recent polls have shown a little over a third of the public wants Obamacare repealed, so it’s not quite at “give me the original recipe or I will burn the factories” outrage level yet.

Watch Rubio’s remarks below, via C-SPAN:

Via: Mediaite.com

Conservative groups already tax-exempt were also targeted by IRS

Rep. Darrell Issa has announced that he is expanding his investigation into IRS targeting of conservative groups to deal with alllegations that the tax agency put groups already tax exempt under additional scrutiny.

The Hill:

The IRS subjected conservative groups already granted tax-exempt status to additional scrutiny during the 2012 election cycle, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged on Monday.

Issa called on a Treasury watchdog already looking into the IRS to investigate the matter, and signaled he would expand his committee's probe into improper targeting of political groups given the new revelations.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on Issa's panel, accused the chairman of pushing a "political narrative" by picking choice quotes and disregarding contrary evidence.

"It is unfortunate that you persist in this pattern of selectively releasing quotes instead of conducting a responsible investigation focused on implementing real reforms. I urge you to focus on obtaining the full set of facts rather than making unsubstantiated allegations," he said in a letter sent to Issa Monday.

He said the Virginia-based Leadership Institute was audited in 2011 and 2012 for activities it engaged in during the 2008 election year, even though it had functioned as a tax-exempt organization since 1979.

It faced "invasive questions" -- including about its interns and where they went on to work -- and ended up turning over to the IRS more than 23,000 pages of

documents at a cost of roughly $50,000 to comply with the inquiry, Issa said.

Via: American Thinker

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MSNBC Ratings Slump Continues in July

IT COULD NOT HAPPEN TO A NICER BUNCH OF NEWS HACKS

MSNBC’s 2013 woes continued in July, as the liberal network posted across-the-board declines in total day and primetime viewership compared to a year ago, finishing in fourth place in total viewers (380,000, 137,000 A25-54) and third in primetime (583,000, 202,000 A25-54) in the cable news ratings.

Compared to July 2012, MSNBC fell 12 percent in total viewers and 4 percent in the A25-54 demographic in total day and 18 and 9 percent, respectively, in primetime,TVNewser reports. All In With Chris Hayes, which replaced The Ed Show in April, has been a bust, and other primetime programming has declined as well:

“All In with Chris Hayes” was down -27% in Total Viewers and -15% in A25-54 viewers compared to July 2012, when “The Ed Show” aired at 8pm ET. “The Rachel Maddow Show” was down -19% in Total Viewers and -20% in the A25-54 demographic, and “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” was down -29% and -27%, respectively.

Among the month’s lowlights was Maddow, generally the network’s highest-rated pundit, losing to HLN’s Dr. Drew July 9 in addition to traditional time slot winner Sean Hannity of Fox News.

Also, in spite of wall-to-wall coverage of the George Zimmerman murder trial, MSNBC finished a distant fourth behind HLN, CNN and Fox News when the country tuned in for the verdict July 13.

Via: WFB

Cruz knocks House Republicans for ‘symbolic’ votes on Obamacare

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz knocked House Republicans for taking votes to repeal Obamacare that he called “symbolic,” rather than effective.

Speaking at a briefing at the Heritage Foundation on his push with several other Republican senators to defund the Affordable

Care Act using the continuing resolution, Cruz said that would be an action with a real effect, and that efforts before were largely for show.

“There are an awful lot of politicians in Washington who love empty, symbolic votes,” Cruz said. “It’s been one of my biggest surprises in the Senate. … I guess I wasn’t cynical enough when I arrived. I didn’t realize how many Republicans love to have a fig leaf vote where they can go and tell their constituents: ‘See, I voted to do the right things.’”

“I mean, the House has voted, what? 39, 40, 41 times? I can’t keep track, to repeal Obamacare. Those votes were by and large all empty, symbolic votes. they had zero chance of passage,” Cruz said. “So they’re in many ways ideal politics cause they let you cast a vote so you can go to your constituents and say, ‘See, I voted to do that.’ But there’s no chance of it actually happening.”

“On the CR,” he said, “that’s where the rubber meets the road.” (RELATED: Cruz says this is the last chance to get rid of Obamacare)

Cruz added that he believed voters were aware of the difference.

“Any elected official who casts a vote for this continuing resolution that funds Obamacare is affirmatively voting to fund Obamacare,” he said

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Via: The Daily Caller

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