George W. Bush Won the 2000 Election
and he was re-elected in 2004 ... but how can you tell?

This page was assembled and maintained during the eight years of the George W. Bush administration.  By accumulating all this information I hoped to demonstrate that President Bush specifically -- and the Republican Party as a whole -- were conducting themselves in exactly the way President Gore or President Kerry would have.  It was as if President Bush couldn't believe that he won the election, and had to keep building up political favors from the first day to the last.  Some of the material on this page is moot, stale, or completely outdated now, but I hope it shows how both (major) political parties have slid waaaaay off to the political left.

In 2008, the Republican nomination went to Senator John McCain.  Although Senator McCain is a far more honorable man than the person who eventually won, hardly anyone (as far as I could tell) was enthusiastic about voting for him.  It was about like voting for Bob Dole.  In my opinion, if that's the best candidate the Republican party can find, it is time to select a third party that truly represents my beliefs.


The presidential election of 2000 was close, but it was not a tie.  George W. Bush defeated Al Gore fair and square, and Bush is under no obligation to share power with Al Gore.  Yet he seems to be doing many of the things that Al Gore would have done if Gore had won the election.  He has failed to retract Bill Clinton's last-minute land grabs, pardons and executive orders.  He let President Clinton's staff get away with looting Air Force One on Clinton's last day in office.  He has proposed a budget amounting to $3.1 trillion!  Bill Clinton gave us the "women in combat" policy, but President Bush has done nothing to change it back.  More recently another matter has come to light:  Bill Clinton's Executive Order 13166, which effectively makes the United States a multilingual country.  President Bush should have rescinded nearly all of President Clinton's last-minute regulations and executive orders on his first day in office!

Lately every day seems like April Fool's Day, because President Bush keeps proposing all kinds of programs that make this web page so easy to build.  President Bush campaigned as a conservative leader, but he seemed to jump at the chance to expand the Medicare program to include prescription drug benefits*.

Now that Mr. Bush has been re-elected, he's doing many of the things that John Kerry would have done as president -- or that Al Gore would have done in his second term.  Many of the people who voted for George W. Bush (rather than Al Gore) were hoping that he would get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, among other things, but instead he wants to expand the NEA's budget by $18 million.

Who signed Campaign Finance Reform into law?  George W. Bush.  He has proposed amnesty for illegal aliens*, which was the main issue that caused California voters to recall Governor Davis.  Many people believe that he is quietly working on merging the US, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union.  How many of you who voted for President Bush thought he would have signed anything like the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2002?  Most astonishing of all, President Bush has announced a proposal for a half-trillion-dollar space station on the moon and a trillion-dollar manned mission to Mars!  Even Al Gore would have hesitated to float an idea like that!

For the first few years of his presidency, some of his supporters excused the Bush's Gore-like actions by saying he was "building up political capital".  Since he almost never spends any of it, I find that explanation harder to believe every year.

Please note that a large percentage of the material on this page is about the weak and ineffective Republican Party, not just about Mr. Bush himself.

There is no difference between a tax-and-spend Democrat and a tax-and-spend Republican.  I am much more concerned about what's good for this country than what's good for any political party.  If this is the best example of conservative Republican leadership, the Republicans deserved to lose in the 2006 elections.  If the Republicans didn't learn their lesson in 2006, they deserve another "thump" in 2008.

However…

Some single-issue voters chose George W. Bush so that he — not Al Gore and certainly not John Kerry — would select the people to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court.  Most conservatives probably don't regret voting for Mr. Bush, simply because of his Supreme Court nominations.  (With the exception of that Harriet Meirs fiasco, of course.)  His opponents would have packed the Supreme Court with clones of Ruth B. Ginsburg, with the full cooperation of the Senate, accelerating the country's slide into humanist socialism.  More information about Supreme Court issues is available here.

Notwithstanding all the information on this page, President Bush has done a number of good things while in office, which is why he was reelected.  Several million of us realized that Kerry and Edwards must not win, and despite all the discouragement from the news media, people showed up at the polls and kept the Democrats out of the White House for a while longer.  Many of us realize that the last thing this country needs is another Bill Clinton in the White House.*

The best thing anyone can do at this point is pray for George W. Bush.

I'm not the only one who has noticed that Mr. Bush talks like a conservative and acts like a tax and spend liberal.  This page has grown so large, I have put some of the older material on page two, so those of you with dial-up internet service can load this page more quickly.


Note:  All the material about the President's proposal to let a company in the UAE run some of the largest ports in America (and what was he thinking?) has been moved here.

Information about the proposed NAFTA Superhighway is located here.


What NASA's next administrator should do if SLS and Orion are cancelled.  When George Bush Jr. first proposed in 2004 an American long term effort to return to the Moon that has since become the Artemis program, he made it clear that the goal was not to simply land in 2015 and plant the flag, but to establish an aerospace industry capable of staying on the Moon permanently while going beyond to settle the entire the solar system.  The problem was that Bush proposed doing this with a government-built system that was simply not capable of making it happen.  Though this system has gone through many changes in the two decades since Bush's proposal, in every case it has been centered on rockets and spacecrafts that NASA designed, built, and owned, and were thus not focused on profit and efficiency.  The result has been endless budget overruns and delays, so that two decades later and more than $60 billion, NASA is still years away from that first Moon landing, and the SLS rocket and Orion capsule that it designed and built for this task are incapable of establishing a base on the Moon, no less explore the solar system.

The Editor says...
 [#1] There is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the exploration of other planets.  [#2] The moon is not a stepping stone.  Making a pointless pit stop on the moon does not make a trip to Mars any easier.  [#3] Putting a permanent base on the moon would benefit nobody.  There is nothing of value on the moon.  [#4] The general public is not clamoring for space exploration.  The only reason George W. Bush made this ridiculous proposal is to expand the government, the number of government employees, and the amount of government spending.  It is exactly what Al Gore would have done as president if he had won the 2000 election instead of Bush.

Ken Paxton's Tucker Carlson interview and Texas's Vichy Republicans' war against conservatives.  When we think of American political families that just won't go away, we tend to look left.  The Kennedys, Clintons, and Obamas keep popping up again and again.  The Kennedys are a multigenerational dynasty, the Clintons are like a nasty rash, and Barack Obama is clearly Biden's puppet master, with Michelle waiting in the wings if things seem to be turning sour for Democrat prospects in 2024.  However, there's another American political family, and that's the George H.W. Bush clan, from Bush, Sr., to Bush, Jr., to Jeb!, to the youngest member of the family, George P. Bush.  This clan also won't go away and, from behind the scenes, it plays a very damaging role in the GOP, which it still controls.

Good Riddance to the Bush Regime.  Reagan was a principled conservative, an excellent communicator, and a generation leader.  His two terms were highly successful, and he left office with high approval ratings and eight years of impressive accomplishments.  He was so popular that his bland and uninspiring Vice President was elected in 1988 as a third Reagan term.  Yet, Bush was nothing like Ronald Reagan.  He believed in a "new world order," military adventurism, and raising taxes.  Bush was also an elitist who cared little for average Americans.  His indifference was on perfect display in the 1992 presidential debate when he was caught looking at his watch, wondering when the "insufferable" questioning would end.  It eventually ended with his defeat to Bill Clinton in the presidential election.  As he retired, it was time for his eldest son, George W. Bush, to assume the family business and climb the political ladder.  Bush was elected Governor of Texas in 1994 and then barely won the presidency in 2000.

George W. Bush to hold re-election fundraiser for Rep.  Liz Cheney.  Embattled Rep.  Liz Cheney is betting on figures from the fading Republican establishment to help her win re-election — setting up a clash between two GOP former presidents.  Cheney (R-Wyo.), who has been sidelined by House Republican leader Rep.  Kevin McCarthy for voting to impeach President Donald Trump, has invited President George W. Bush to hold a fundraiser for her next month in Dallas, the Wall Street Journal reported.  Trump is backing her challenger Harriet Hageman in the 2022 Republican primary for Wyoming's sole House seat.  In his endorsement of Hageman earlier this month, Trump referred to Cheney as a "warmonger and disloyal Republican."

George W. Bush's dreadful 9/11 speech.  President Joe Biden was silent during Saturday's 9/11 commemoration events.  So were former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.  Former President Donald Trump visited a New York City police precinct and fire station, where he made a few impromptu remarks.  The only president who delivered a formal speech on 9/11 was former President George W. Bush.  And it was terrible.  In two ways.  First, Bush's speech was as much about decrying today's political divisions as it was about remembering the events of Sept. 11.  But Bush showed an astonishing lack of self-awareness of the role his own actions played in creating those divisions.  And second, Bush helped widen those divisions by endorsing a Rachel Maddow-esque argument that an equivalence exists between the plane-hijacking, murderous terrorists of Sept. 11, 2001, and the Capitol rioters of Jan. 6, 2021 — a comparison that has no basis in fact but has done much to sour the national debate.

Outrage over George W. Bush 9/11 Speech Attacking American 'Extremists' — 'Americans Are the New Terrorists'.  Many media and political figures expressed outrage online after former President George W. Bush appeared to use his speech commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 to compare January 6 Capitol protesters to the Islamic terrorists who viciously attacked America, killing nearly three thousands innocents and wounding more than double that number.  Speaking at the 9/11 memorial service for Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, Bush recalled the September 11 attacks while warning of future terrorist threats to the United States.  "We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders but from violence that gathers within," he said.

George W. Bush's swipe at domestic extremism:  Who was he talking about?  George W. Bush appeared at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to honor those who died on 9/11.  It was an interesting speech, but not necessarily in a good way.  He told the veterans of America's long wars that their sacrifices weren't in vain, an obviously false statement now that Biden has given Afghanistan itself and U.S. hi-tech weapons valued at $83B to the Taliban.  More provocatively, Bush said that Islamic violent extremists are the same as domestic violent extremists when it comes to their "disregard of human life."  The big question is whether Bush was referring to Antifa and BLM or to the January 6 protesters — and, interestingly, everybody assumes he was speaking about the latter.

Hey, GOP! This is What Pushback Looks Like.  Republican voters have lamented for years over the lack of pushback from their elected leaders.  Democrats and the media hurl baseless and libelous accusations at Republicans, only to be met with a weak defense at best, or silence at worst. [...] In the last few years, however, the tide is turning.  Pushback is being demonstrated by our pugilist-in-chief, President Donald Trump.  And others are following his lead.  Compare this to the last Republican president, George W Bush, who never pushed back against his political opponents while president, who had only kind words to say about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but who finally found his voice when Trump was elected. [...] Not pushing back allowed the media and Democrats to drive Bush's approval numbers into the toilet by the end of his second term to the point that a political lightweight like Obama could become president.

Enough With the Bipartisanship.  In 2001, newly elected president George W. Bush decided he wanted to work with Democrats in Congress to do something about education.  So backs were slapped and hands were shaken.  Sen. Ted Kennedy was invited to the White House for a movie screening.  The resulting No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was co-sponsored by Kennedy, and amounted to little more than a consolidation of federal education power.  The one initiative that might have ameliorated the plight of inner-city students — school vouchers — was stripped out during negotiations.

How's that affordable housing working out for you?  In the old days, you had to have a job, good credit and a down payment (or honorable military service) to get a mortgage.  President Bush 43 worked to change that. ... In the name of helping the poor, the minorities and the inner cities, Bush and company set the nation on the road to ruin — and yes, the poor, minorities and inner cities were hardest hit.

Not Your Grandfather's Republican Party.  At one time, the bastion of balanced budgets and no free lunches, 70% of gross public debt through the last fiscal year was accumulated under the last three Republican presidents who ran deficits twenty out of twenty years averaging 3.9% of GDP.  Having inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton, George W. Bush presided over a doubling in federal debt, simultaneously cutting taxes while running two wars on credit.  Railing against domestic spending, the same administration implemented a large new unfunded prescription drug benefit.  Yet now, as the opposition party, Republicans pontificate about the dangerous levels of gross public debt (now at 101.1% of GDP) and last summer set about playing chicken with a possible default on our financial obligations.

Is the Party Over?  Most of the Founding Fathers thought that political parties or "factions" were a serious danger of representative democracy.  Conservatives who endured the Republican hegemony from 1995 to 2007 might agree.  Federal spending, including big slabs of greasy pork, exploded under a Republican Congress, with majority members infatuated with reelection.  Conservatives later groaned when President Bush nominated Harriett Miers to the Supreme Court.  We winced when George W. Bush wistfully informed us that Islam is a "religion of peace."  Conservatives watched in despair as Republican control of the Senate translated into committee chairmanships for Arlen Specter and John McCain, men with a lovesickness for leftist praise.

(Tea) Party On.  [This article illustrates] what happens when the liberal worldview — so much of which is based on lies, distortion and character assassination — isn't met with equal amounts of force and determination to provide Americans with the truth.  The failure to do so was the tragic flaw of the Bush administration.

Who's to Blame for Obamacare?  Two Republicans.  The real culprits are two Republicans who ran the show the previous eight years:  George W. Bush and his "master political strategist" Karl Rove.  If it weren't for these two in the White House, the Democrats wouldn't have sixty senators, including a professional comedian from Minnesota, to close off debate and ram down our throats a bill worse than Hillary Care.

Letter Of Resignation To The RNC; I Quit!  After wrestling with this decision for two years now, I have resigned from the Republican party.  The party no longer represents my values and I see no hope for real change in the foreseeable future.

Lost in Political Space.  Republicans are in electoral trouble for many reasons, but one of them surely is not that they are insufficiently liberal on social issues. What's the point of having a two-party system if one party mimics the other?  Many erstwhile Republican voters turned on the GOP not because they were insufficiently liberal, but because they were insufficiently conservative.

Who Are the Big Spenders?  When Republicans were in charge, they spent too much. ... I say that because I am a limited-government conservative.  I waited 50 years for Republicans to be in charge so they could do what they always said they would do:  cut taxes, cut spending, cut regulations.  They cut taxes a little bit in their first year or two, and that was it.  I didn't want them to do the same thing that had been done the previous 50 years; I wanted them to cut, cut, cut.  Instead, Bush gave us prescription coverage under Medicare, No Child Left Behind, ethanol subsidies, massive transportation bills, etc.

Republican Deficit Hypocrisy.  The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me, so it shouldn't surprise me that so many Republicans seem to genuinely believe that they are the party of fiscal responsibility.  Perhaps at one time they were, but those days are long gone.  This fact became blindingly obvious to me six years ago this month when a Republican president and a Republican Congress enacted the Medicare drug benefit, which former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has called "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s."

Six Keys to Turning Around the Republican Party.  What the last four years have proven conclusively is that there is no future for a "Democrat-light" party in this country that talks about small government, keeping spending under control, cleaning up corruption in Washington, and law and order while delivering none of those things.

Exhuming James Madison:  In 2004, after the inexcusable expansion of entitlement programs and the creation of new government offices such as the utterly unnecessary and hopelessly inefficient Department of Homeland Security, many of us voted for Bush again.  We did it because we thought Bush would make decent Supreme Court choices, and we were right.  We also thought he could not become more fiscally irresponsible, and we were wrong.

Some think Bush was too liberal.  [Gleaves] Whitney, a Republican, ticked off the president's major transgressions:  [1] Initially nominating his counsel, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court, despite a deep bench of conservative legal scholars ready to be tapped.  [2] Supporting immigration reform that included a route to legal status for illegal immigrants.  [3] Adding a $900-billion prescription drug benefit to Medicare, the insurance program for senior citizens.  [4] Failing to keep Congress from spending beyond its means.

W Too Nice to be President?  Conservatism needs a fresh start.  It is losing arguments ... and it is losing elections.  One person, more than any other (even more than John McCain), has caused this:  President George W. Bush.  Conservatives have not been winning arguments — or elections — by defending President Bush and his record.  We have been, repeatedly, thumped rhetorically and electorally in our efforts to support his policies.  It is time for conservatives to move on.

George W. 'Deer in Headlights' Bush.  Christopher De Muth, President of AEI and the interviewer, specifically asked Bush why he signed the McCain/Feingold campaign reform legislation into law and why the Justice Department argued in favor of the constitutionality of the law.  The underlying question was:  Had the President broken his oath to defend the Constitution when he signed the bill? ... Bush talked the talk but he did not walk the walk.  This was almost always true when it came to wielding the veto pen.  Bush couldn't find the veto pen — let alone use it.  Bush would not even veto legislation that he knew was unconstitutional.

The Age of Irresponsibility.  [Scroll down]  There was George Tenet, whose time as CIA director included two massive intelligence failures.  Bush gave Tenet the nation's highest civilian honor in return.  There was the FBI, which still hasn't definitively figured out who attacked America with anthrax in late 2001.  There was Rumsfeld, who committed too few troops to the fight in Iraq and failed to change strategy when it became clear, early on, that America was losing the war.  He stayed in his job until 2006.  The generals whom Bush and Rumsfeld tasked with running the war?  None of them suffered any consequences for his failures.  One of the main opponents of the successful surge strategy in Iraq, George Casey, was promoted to Army chief of staff.

The Right Standard for Judging George W. Bush:  As he prepares to leave the White House after eight monumentally eventful years, what's the right standard for judging the performance of George W. Bush?  The basis for answering that question has changed radically over the course of the last seven years, very much to the president's detriment.

Genius, thy name is Obama.  No modern president has ever done more to bridge partisan divides and show respect to his opponents than George W. Bush.  I do not say this with admiration; it is simply a fact. ... But the point is:  Bush was massively chummy with his enemies — Democrats, communists and the Congressional Black Caucus.  So chummy that even they began to wonder if he was a little daft.  In his first few weeks in office, Bush met with more than 150 members of Congress, half of them Democrats — including five events with America's leading liberal menace, Sen. Teddy Kennedy.

The Lure of Royalty:  For most of his life, George W. Bush was famous mostly for his meager accomplishments.  But because his father was president, he was able to get himself elected governor of Texas and then president as well.  A lot of people assumed he would have some of his father's better traits:  a habit of hiring smart people, a measure of humility and the good judgment not to occupy Iraq.  Instead, the younger Bush seemed to spend his presidency trying to show how different he was from the old man.  Mission accomplished.

Does the GOP Have a Future?  I have no way of knowing whether the Republican party will go the way of the Whigs, the Bull Moose and the dodo bird.  But perhaps it should.  After all, when they held control of the House, the Senate and the Oval Office, for the first six years of President Bush's administration, they were inept, lazy and corrupt.  In other words, they behaved just like Democrats. ... [President Bush] did nothing to prevent the financial crisis from taking place.  What's more, when it did occur, he, like McCain, never laid the blame for it at the feet of people like Obama, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.  I never could figure that out.  Were they afraid they wouldn't be invited to the really cool Christmas parties?

Obama's Illegal Alien Aunti: The Rest of the Story.  I hope Barack Obama remembered to thank George Bush on behalf of his illegal alien aunt this week.  The lame-duck Republican president did the Democratic president-elect a generous — and dangerous — favor right before Election Day:  Putting politics above homeland security, the Bush administration ordered immigration authorities across the country to halt all deportation enforcement actions until the campaign season was over.  According to my sources, the Bush administration issued a 72-hour cease-and-desist order to all fugitive apprehension teams to spare Obama embarrassment over his Kenyan half-aunt, Zeituni Onyango.

Restoring Reaganism:  Comrade George W. Bush has spearheaded the most aggressive federal expansion since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. ... While much of Bush's spending has funded defense and the War on Terror, most of it vanished into the furnaces of No Child Left Behind, the 2002 Farm Bill, the 2003 Medicare drug entitlement, the 2005 highway bill, the 2006 ethanol mandate, at least 69,341 earmarks, and much, much more.

Time Of Death: Oct. 3, 2008.  Republicans had branded themselves as the Party of low taxes, responsible spending and limited government.  Virtually everything President Bush has done since his tax cuts in 2001 has been the exact opposite.
 •  Prescription coverage for Medicare and Medicaid, the largest expansion of entitlements since LBJ.
 •  No Child Left Behind, sponsored by Ted Kennedy and leading to even more Federal intrusion into education and doubling federal spending on education.
 •  Increased steel and lumber tariffs.
 •  Ending the Freedom to Farm effort and expanded ethanol subsidies.
 •  Increases in the minimum wage, the first in 10 years.
 •  Increasing spending from about 18.4% of GDP to 20% and more, and turning surpluses into deficits.
 •  Campaign Finance Reform.
 •  And almost forgot, our President had the Justice Dept. file an amicus brief to weaken the 2nd Amendment in the Heller case.

'Compassionate' Conservatism Was a Mistake.  Parties are all about getting people elected to political office; and the practice of politics too often takes the form of professional juvenile delinquency:  short-sighted and self-centered.  This was certainly true of the Bush presidency.  Too often the policy agenda was determined by short-sighted political considerations and an abiding fear that the public simply would not understand limited government and expanded individual freedoms.  How else do we explain "compassionate conservatism," No Child Left Behind, the Medicare drug benefit and the most dramatic growth in federal spending since LBJ's Great Society?

President Bush a Conservative?  The big prize, in my judgment, is a generation away.  That moment will come when women decided that men make better husbands than the nanny state.  When they do that then it will bring the whole edifice of the welfare state into question:  the government pensions, the government health care, the government education, and the government welfare.  Today all that stuff costs a little north of $3 trillion per year.

To The Undecided Voter:  One thing for sure ... the Republicans deserve exactly what is happening to them in this election.  It's just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer the lion's share of the punishment the Republicans so richly deserve.  In 1994 the voters were fed up with Clinton and the Republicans swept to control of both houses of congress, largely on the strength of Newt's Contract with America.  Do you remember some of the promises?  One that sticks in my mind is their promise to dismantle the Department of Education.  Republicans — in 1994 — recognized that the quality of American education had been going steadily downhill since this government behemoth was formed.  Well, that was then ... this is now.  The size of the Education Department, as well as the cost, has doubled.  Republicans did this, not Democrats.

Bush Embraces Obama's Socialism.  In short, we already have a socialist president — and his name is Bush.  Bush's latest scheme, as he explained in his Saturday [10/25/2008] radio address, is a November 15 "international summit," including the United Nations Secretary-General, to "begin developing principles of reform for regulatory bodies and institutions related to our financial sectors."  This is bureaucratic doublespeak for what has been called "global governance."  Some may fear with good reason that world government and global taxes are on the way in and U.S. sovereignty is on the way out.

Time Of Death: Oct. 3, 2008.  The death of the Republican Party has an exact date:  October 3, 2008. ... October 3, 2008 is, of course, when the $trillion bailout was passed by the House and signed into law by President Bush.  October 1 was when John McCain voted for the bailout in the Senate, and went on to urge House Republicans to vote in favor of it.  March 27, 2002 was when President Bush signed McCain-Feingold into law.  (Ironically, Feingold voted against the bailout, making him more Republican than McCain.)

The IRS Will be Hiring.  Any budget cutting would be an improvement over the last eight years of George W. Bush's failure to veto any spending bill Congress, controlled by Republicans until 2006, sent his way.  Only after a Democrat epiphany did W actually wield the veto in the name of fiscal prudence.  By then it was too late and talk of $700 billion bailouts filled the air.

If the Reagan Era is Dead, Who Killed it?  Maggie [Thatcher] was strong and Ronald Reagan was strong, but when they no longer were in power and at their prime, their followers turned into weak-kneed office seekers.  Being weak they were easily led astray and went in other directions, and fell prey to the lure of big government, big spending and big deficit politics.

Bush Gives State Secrets to Obama.  Barack Obama, who has not been "vetted" by the FBI for the position of president of the United States, received his "first high level briefing" on Tuesday from the office of the Director of National Intelligence, CNN has reported.  "Obama was given the briefing at the FBI field office in Chicago," the cable channel said, from a "team of intelligence experts."  But why should Obama, with a documented history of contacts with communists and terrorists, be trusted with this information?

Palin's Problem:  The problem is the inherent oddity of the incumbent party running on change.  Here were Republicans — the party that controlled the White House for eight years and both houses of Congress for five — wildly cheering the promise to take on Washington.  I don't mean to be impolite, but who's controlled Washington this decade?

Bush Won't Call for Special Session.  From the Department of Unsurprising News comes this dispatch:  President Bush will not call Congress back into session in August to hold a vote on opening more land to oil drilling.

Republican Energy Fumble.  [Scroll down]  The plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states.  The regulatory hurdles are huge.  And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast — putting off limits some of the most productive areas.  Alaska's oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.  The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables.  The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies!

Republican Energy Fumble -- II.  Ask GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer what he thinks of the recent "Gang of 10" Senate energy compromise, and his answer is short and not sweet:  "I'd call it 40% tax increase, 10% energy and 50% snake oil."  The Coloradan might well be irked.  Republicans like Mr. Schaffer had successfully turned this summer's political debate into a fight over domestic energy exploration, putting antidrilling Democrats on defense.

The Five Stooges.  If you thought Republicans were no longer "The Stupid Party," then you haven't met the senators who may have just destroyed the GOP's biggest hope this election year:  the drilling issue.

Socialism Is Coming to America.  The liberal media are, of course, also trying to keep the American people in the dark about what is happening.  The Washington Post deceptively calls it a "rescue plan."  The "debate" taking place in Washington and the media is being carefully controlled.  The Republican Bush Administration supports the plan and Congressional Democrats want to take it further.  The Democrats want even more federal involvement in the firms that are being acquired.  In other words, it is a question of how much socialism they want.

Gold Medal Embarrassment.  Conservatives worry that Barack Obama may be another Jimmy Carter, but the current White House occupant is proving to be just as dim when it comes to defending U.S. interests.  In fact, even Carter did not make an error comparable to President Bush's decision to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, providing fodder for the Communist propaganda machine.

Conservatives' Anger with GOP May Be Party's Downfall.  A poll of 1,015 conservative activists and donors shows that 77 percent are either seriously disappointed with Republican Congressional leaders or want them totally replaced.  The poll/survey also found that 54 percent of conservatives feel so abandoned by the current crop of Congressional leaders and President Bush that they plan to reduce their contributions and/or grassroots work for GOP candidates in the next election.  And 70 percent would support a principled conservative challenger running against an established incumbent Republican in a GOP primary.

Everything Must Go:  The American Conservative Movement, 1980-2008.  Take away Samuel Alito, John Roberts, the vibrant mid-2000s economy and his antiterrorism successes, and George W. Bush would be viewed as a man who did as much damage to the conservative movement as [Bill] Clinton. … Bush betrayed conservatives in countless ways; he attempted to force "big-government conservatism" down the right's collective throat, causing conservatives to join "progressives" in scorning Bush during the course of his second term.  Bush's record-low poll numbers are the direct result of his alienation of the GOP base through his lack of fidelity to conservative principles.

Exactly what the Gore administration would have done:
 Officials say polar bears to be protected species.  The Interior Department has decided to protect the polar bear as a threatened species because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming, officials said Wednesday [5/14/2008].  Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne scheduled a news conference to announce the action.  It comes a day before a court-imposed deadline on deciding whether the bear should be put under the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act.

Polar Bear Melodrama:  Polar bears are not the fragile, vulnerable creatures of liberal iconography.  They have thrived in the Arctic for thousands of years, both through periods when their sea-ice habitat was smaller, and larger, than it is now.  They will continue to adapt — and the Endangered Species Act can't make the slightest difference.  Such realities haven't prevented green showboaters from claiming victory after the Bush Administration designated the polar bear as a "threatened" species yesterday [5/14/2008].

See more information under Polar bears and the Endangered Species Act.

Warming health report:  Poor, elderly to hurt most.  Global warming will affect the health and welfare of every American, but the poor, elderly, and children will suffer the most, according to a new White House science report released Thursday [7/17/2008].  The 284-page report, mostly written by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said every region of the country will be hit by worse health from heat waves and drought.

Have you noticed that Global Warming is blamed for everything?

If The GOP Wants To Govern Like Democrats, Why Have a Separate Party?  What we're watching is the culmination of the decade-plus deterioration of the conservative Republican brand.  Put simply, no one, including base conservatives, trusts the Republicans to govern effectively while following anything even faintly resembling a conservative platform.

This takes the cake...
 Bush Bans Light Bulbs, Gas Guzzling Cars.  President Bush signed an energy bill on Wednesday that bans traditional incandescent light bulbs and requires automakers to produce more energy-efficient vehicles.  The bill, titled the Energy Independence and Security Act, calls for higher fuel standards for cars and light trucks, mandates higher ethanol production and begins a phase out of incandescent light bulbs by 2012 because they burn too much energy.

The Editor says...
 Banning incandescent light bulbs is exactly what one might have expected from President Al Gore or President John Kerry.  Or Fidel Castro!  What was he thinking?  Is the environmental lobby really that powerful?  More information — none of it favorable — about Compact Fluorescent Bulbs (CFLs) can be found on this page.

George W. Bush Is GOP's Bill Clinton.  George W. Bush is driving the GOP off the cliff.  His mad infatuation with Mexican immigration, and his unbelievably naïve and dangerous policies in the Middle East are causing people to leave the Republican Party like rats off a sinking ship. … Even those who were willing to forgive Bush for taking us to war with Iraq have no patience or mercy for his dogged determination to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, and to merge America into a regional commercial entity with Mexico and Canada.

Endowed by their Creator.  According to WorldNetDaily's headline story on October 7, [2007,] President Bush has once again displayed his lack of thoughtfulness with the statement that people of all religions pray to the same God. … Apparently, the President of the United States has never thoughtfully considered the premise of our existence as a nation.  The man sworn to the greatest responsibility to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States apparently doesn't understand the idea that it is founded upon.

Bush prepares global warming initiative.  President Bush is poised to change course and announce as early as this week that he wants Congress to pass a bill to combat global warming, and will lay out principles for what that should include.  Specifics of the policy are still being fiercely debated, but Bush administration officials have told Republicans in Congress that they feel pressure to act now because they fear a coming regulatory nightmare.

President Appears to Seek a Warming Legacy.  Both at home and overseas, there are signs that the White House — after seven years of charges that it was failing to accept and act on science pointing to dangerous human-caused climate change — is aiming to repair its legacy on the issue.  Trial balloons are lofting and swirling.

Bush Raises Temp on Global Warming.  The last months of a presidential administration are often dangerous.  Presidents — looking to their legacies — go to desperate lengths to try to enhance their reputations for posterity. … Just as an increasing number of scientists are finding their courage to speak out against the global warming alarmists and just as a building body of evidence and theories challenge the key elements of the human-centric carbon-based global warming theories, George W. Bush takes this moment to say, in effect:  "We are all global alarmists now."

Bush's Global Warming Surrender:  We're hearing some very bad things about the President's likely unconditional surrender on global warming tomorrow [4/16/2008].  One senior source suggested that the last line of sound defense had been breached and that "It will be very bad."  I'd imagine he will request, against all evidence from Europe that this does anything but make consumers poorer and utilities richer, a cap and trade regime for energy utilities.

W Goes Green?  Apparently, the president is considering how to push forward his "20-in-10" plan to reduce US consumption of foreign oil by 20% in 10 years.  So far that has meant a massive increase in the biofuel requirements, principally ethanol (mostly derived from corn, soy and palm oils).  Where these mandates go, plows and chainsaws follow.  So do deadly food riots and increasing unrest.

Did someone mention ethanol?

The Case for Ending Ethanol Subsidies:  Just in time for today's Earth Day festivities, President Bush has announced a new initiative to combat global warming.  He set a goal of stopping the growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2025 and reducing emissions thereafter.  But rather than plan for 2025 — which is another two or three presidencies away — Bush should immediately fix his ethanol policy, which is increasing GHG emissions and raising food prices not only in the United States but all over the world.

Bush Promotes Hillary's Global Policies.  Our national "news" programs have been preoccupied with baseball players on steroids, but they should devote some attention to the Bush Administration's approval of a plan to put the United Nations on steroids.  Apparently looking to leave office with the blessings of the "international community," the Bush Administration sold out American interests at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December.

Did someone mention Bali?

Why Is Bush Apologizing?  President Bush could not have picked a worse time to decide to soften his image.  As Iran barrels towards full nuclear capability and as positive developments in the War on Terror shine a favorable light on the Bush Doctrine, we find the President at his most cuddly and contrite.

Bush Running Out of Red Ink?  On February 4, President Bush presented his fiscal 2009 budget plan to Congress.  The budget proposes spending a record $3.1 trillion.  Last year's budget stood at $2.9 trillion in comparison. … Democrats joked that Bush cut back on the printed copies because he ran out of red ink.

Bush makes power grab.  President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 [2007] signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president. … Translated into layman's terms, when the president determines a national emergency has occurred, the president can declare to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.

The Editor says...
 (1)  This directive sounds somewhat Mugabe-esque.
(2)  Nothing in the Constitution authorizes this action.  The word emergency is not in the Constitution.
(3)  I don't believe for one second that George W. Bush came up with this idea.

A More Honest Socialism.  How do you turn $5.9 billion into $200 billion overnight?  By magic.  Political magic in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — due to their status as publicly traded private companies back-stopped by taxpayer guarantees.  Yesterday [3/19/2008], Fannie and Freddie announced, alongside their chief regulator Jim Lockhart, that they would be leveraging up their businesses in the name of riding to the rescue of the mortgage-backed securities market.

The Editor says...
 When the federal government prints $200 billion in cash that didn't exist the day before, that's the cause of inflation and the weakening dollar.

Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Zimbabwe.  [President Bush is extending] for one year the national emergency with respect to the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe's democratic processes or institutions.

The Editor says...
 I can see how the situation in Zimbabwe should be of great concern to our elected officials, but how does it qualify as a national emergency in this country?  I was surprised to learn recently that there are currently 14 national emergencies in effect in the U.S.

The Next Conservatism:  Conservatism has become so weak in ideas that during the presidency of George W. Bush, the word "conservative" could be and was applied with scant objection to policies that were starkly anti-conservative. … If conservatism is to be re-established as an intellectual force, and not merely a label for whatever the establishment does to its own benefit, it must first re-awaken intellectually.  We need a new conservative agenda.

The Senate Could Vote on the "Thought Crimes" Bill Soon!  Like President Clinton, President Bush now equates opposition to his policies, especially concerning the War in Iraq and the "War on Terror," as unpatriotic, or even treasonable.

Earmarks and the Executive:  President Bush signed a massive omnibus appropriations bill last week, calling the $550 billion monstrosity "reasonable and responsible."  Leading fiscal conservatives aren't so sure.  The bill is littered with pork-barrel earmarks, which Bush, to his credit, has denounced.  But this talk needs to be followed with action.

A Trillion Here, A Trillion There.  Last week, President Bush proposed the first $3 trillion federal budget.  This is just five years after he introduced the first $2 trillion budget.  To put such dizzying numbers in perspective, consider that it took nearly two hundred years for the federal budget to pass the $1 trillion mark.  […But] even when a Republican president offers a blueprint for record federal spending, he is attacked as a budget-slashing miser.

Bush Offers Record Budget of More than $3 Trillion.  One sign of how rapidly government spending has been growing in recent years is the $3.1 trillion federal budget President George W. Bush introduced in February.  When Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget was under $2 trillion.  "All in all, the new budget tops off eight years of remarkably spendthrift policies by President Bush," said Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute.  "Over eight years, Bush has presided over a huge, 67 percent increase in total federal outlays.  The comparable figure for President Clinton's eight years was just 32 percent."

Get that veto pen ready...
 Will McCain Oppose $845 Billion Earmark?  Some of the politicians on Capitol Hill regularly and sometimes secretly attach costly "earmarks" to bills to benefit special interests.  Since Senator John McCain says he wants to eliminate those earmarks, he should start with the Barack Obama bill, the Global Poverty Act (S. 2344), which itself is a vastly expanded form of earmark.  It commits the U.S. to spending $845 billion to eradicate poverty in the rest of the world.

Red Tape Rising.  To hear Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tell it, the Bush Administration is in the pocket of corporate interests.  That's a good one.  A look at the recent Bush regulatory record makes one wonder why the party's candidates aren't holding it up as a model of Democratic governance.

The President's Proposals for Medicaid and SCHIP:  One Step Forward, One Step Back.  Last year, the President took a prudent and fiscally conservative approach to reauthorizing SCHIP by proposing an increase of $5 billion over five years.  He now proposes spending four times that amount, recommending $20 billion over five years.  By 2013, spending on SCHIP would top $46.3 billion, almost doubling its current cost.  Moreover, the proposal would dedicate $50 million in FY 2009 and $100 million in each of the next four years for outreach.  The goal, as described by the Department of Health and Human Services, is to increase enrollment 3 percent by FY 2009 and 12 percent by FY 2012.  (Emphasis added.)

The End of Conservatism:  Aside from his foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments, conservatives find little to love about George W. Bush.  His signature domestic policies include a vast expansion of government-financed health care (prescription-drug benefits), and increased funding for education while halfheartedly promoting vouchers and school choice.  Bush also signed into law campaign-finance reform and supported a proposed immigration bill that would have allowed illegal aliens a path to citizenship.  The Republican Congress is even worse, having indulged in an orgy of irresponsible spending.

Everything Must Go:  The American Conservative Movement, 1980-2008.  It was fun while it lasted.  The guaranteed election of a non-conservative President on November 4th represents the end of the conservative movement in America.  Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain stands for Reagan principles in any way, shape, manner or form — and after twenty years of non-conservative Presidents, it's obvious that the Reagan era will never, ever return.

President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.  The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation.  This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me.

The Elephant in the Big Tent:  Having accepted the concept of the "Big Tent" a long time ago, the GOP can't excommunicate anyone from the party.  It was a dumb idea and the GOP has paid the price for it in endless philosophical drift and inept presidential nominees.  John McCain differs in degree, not kind, from the last three GOP presidential candidates.  Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., McCain:  Where's the substantive difference?  They are all intellectually lame Republicans, with little to no interest in conservative political and moral philosophy.

Conservative Grief:  I'm almost out of my depression and arriving at acceptance.  What do I accept?  That the U.S. is just another European country now.  We are all welfare states if not outright socialist ones and our political choices are between center-left and left-left.  Time to get used to it.  Moving to France won't make much difference, whether you are Alec Baldwin or Chuck Norris.

Lack of pardon for agents ripped.  Several members of Congress derided President Bush yesterday [12/12/2007] for not including former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean among the 29 pardons that he issued this week.

Drug Dealers Pardoned; Border Patrol Agents Remain in Prison.  My disappointment with our current political and governmental administration reached an all-time high this week.  The reason?  While U.S. Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are left to languish in jail for actually doing their jobs, President Bush has opted to pardon eight (count them — eight) drug dealers.

Bush says feds can open mail without warrant.  President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant.  Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations.  He then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.

Hillary's Voice:  I don't understand how a "Republican" President can preside over six years of mindless spending and, only after his party loses control of Congress, demand austerity while presenting it with a $3.1 trillion budget.  Things like that make no sense to me.

Wiretap Debacle:  The Bush Administration bears much of the blame for this debacle.  White House officials hoped that by agreeing to put the wiretaps under FISA authority, they could lower the political temperature and reach an accommodation with Congress.  But no Administration has ever conceded that FISA trumps a President's Constitutional power to place wiretaps in the name of national security.  The courts have also explicitly upheld this Presidential power.  Mr. Bush was making a needless concession that Democrats have used against him as they refuse to compromise.

Did someone mention Domestic Surveillance?

Border checks limited to speed traffic.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Texas have been ordered to abbreviate national security checks at one of the nation"s busiest ports of entry to speed up travel between the United States and Mexico, according to official documents and multiple interviews with agents.

Bush gives away the farm — and the highway, too.  Let's be clear — this is one more rotten fruit of the NAFTA tree.  It is that treaty, devised by Bush's father and shepherded by President Clinton, which said that roads in Canada, the United States and Mexico must be open to carriers from all three countries.  Canada unfortunately already has full and total access to the U.S. trucking market, and now it looks like Mexico will follow.

Has Bush Stopped Being Bush?  While conservatives have opposed President Bush in several areas, including immigration and federal spending, there is now a growing sense of disappointment among them with his handling of the "war on terror" as well.  His problem is not, as liberals like to charge, that he is intellectually challenged, or that he does not know how to take advice, is not interested, is incapable of working with complexity, or otherwise.  The problem lately with Bush is that he appears to have stopped being Bush.

Introducing George W. Clinton.  Will the real George W. please stand up?  After seven years of fearlessly confronting evil, both rhetorically and militarily, the Bush administration in Washington seems to have faded away, replaced instead by a meek shadow of its former self.  Firm resolve has given way to disappointing frailty, as the shape and direction of US foreign policy increasingly resembles something taken straight out of Bill Clinton's playbook.

Exactly what John Kerry would have done:
 Let's have a free market for housing and religion.  Last week the Bush administration decided to "freeze" for five years the interest rates of certain types of mortgages. … So now the government has stepped in and said that, if you fall into a particular category of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARMs, in the biz) and you're worried that it's getting way too adjustable, don't worry:  The Nanny State is about to readjust it well inside your comfort zone.

The New Entitlement:  Any freeze makes it likely that lenders will henceforth add risk premiums to the cost of money for less-than-prime borrowers.  Although the freeze of adjustable mortgage rates amounts to a revision of perhaps hundreds of thousands of contracts, it will help a relatively small number of people.  And it will not help scrupulous borrowers who have scrimped and sacrificed to fulfill the obligations of their contracts.

Bush Faces Off With Texas Over Execution.  The president wants to enforce a decision by the International Court of Justice that found the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners violated their rights to legal help as outlined in the 1963 Vienna Convention.  That is the same court President Bush has since said he plans to ignore if it makes similar decisions affecting state criminal laws.

Update:
 Supreme Court backs Texas in dispute with Bush.  Texas can ignore President Bush and an international court in refusing to reopen the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder, the Supreme Court said Tuesday [3/25/2008].  The court said Bush exceeded his authority when he tried to intervene on behalf of Jose Ernesto Medellin, facing the death penalty for killing two teenagers nearly 15 years ago.

Base to GOP:  Hasta la Vista, Baby!  Success in politics depends on the ability of a candidate or a party to forge and maintain coalitions.  One of the most successful coalitions in modern political history has been the "Reagan Coalition", which brought together economic and social conservatives under the umbrella of the Republican Party. ... The coalition that Reagan fashioned is fraying, however, and is on the verge of unraveling.  The causes are many, but the coup de grace is likely to be the current controversy over immigration.

The Bush Betrayal — By The Numbers.  Almost half of the U.S.'s illegal alien population arrived since President Bush first took the oath of office and swore to uphold the law … including immigration law, (and that's assuming the government's estimate of the illegal population is right.  Other estimates put the illegal population as high as 20 million).

President "Do Wrong".  President Bush has repeated, mantra-like, that the "guest worker" program he favors isn't amnesty.  He can say it until he's blue in the face, but any program that enables illegals to obtain a probationary card right away, in order to live and work in the U.S., is amnesty, regardless of what Mr. Bush wishes to call it.

Bush Leaving Some Problems to Successors.  Over and over, President Bush confidently promised to "solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations."  As the clock runs out on his eight-year presidency, a tall stack of troubles remain and Bush's words ring hollow.  Iraq, budget deficits, the looming insolvency of Social Security and Medicare, high health and energy costs, a national immigration mess — the next president will inherit these problems in January 2009.

Conservatives Left Behind.  Then there was the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind bill.  We sucked up the big-government approach, and Ted Kennedy photo ops, "for the children."  But the real breakdown moment between the Right and the president who — we thought — had some respect for us even though he isn't really one of us came when he nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.  His patronizing pitch — she is a good lawyer, for a woman! — followed by insulting name calling (you're elitists and don't want her because she didn't go to Harvard; you're sexist and don't want another woman on the Court) was a low point for this administration.

The 20 Most Annoying People on the Right.  (#10) George Bush:  I really hate to ding the President on a list like this, but he showed a level of political incompetence last year that hasn't been seen since the Carter Administration and that had a lot to do with the drubbing Republicans took in 2006.  Moreover, there's the out-of-control spending, his incredibly obnoxious position on illegal immigration, and his seeming reluctance to get serious about Iran, Syria, North Korea and Muqtada al-Sadr is getting to be a real drag.

Bush Weighs Reaching Out To 'Brothers'.  The Bush administration is quietly weighing the prospect of reaching out to the party that founded modern political Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood.


Uncle Sam is afraid to say what he means
because he might offend the people who are determined to kill us all.

No More Jihadists.  The Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. government is moving to kill off jihadists, Islamo-fascists, and mujahedeen.  Not the people:  the words.  Reports from the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center recommend discontinuing the use of such terms, because, as the AP report says, "Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates." … If we eschew these words, what how are we supposed to refer to our enemies?

Flying Blind in the War on Terror:  Imagine that following the bombing of Peal Harbor in December 1941, that FDR had prohibiting the use of the terms "Nazi" or "Japanese Imperialism" due to pressure brought to bear by German and Japanese-American lobbying groups.  Or at the height of the Cold War that the US government had determined to ban the use of "Soviet" or "communism" for fear of offending the sensibilities of Russian-Americans or European socialists.  Yet that is precisely what has happened following the revelation last week by the Associated Press that the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security has issued guidelines banning the use of "jihad", "mujahedeen" and other Islamic terminology with reference to Islamic terrorism.  This move lays bare the ideological prison house of political correctness in which our top policymaker's reside.

Strategic Collapse in the War on Terror:  Words matter, and in the global war on terror we are losing the battle of words, in a self-inflicted defeat.  The consequences could not be more profound.  Recent government policy memoranda, circulating through the national counter-terrorism and diplomatic community, establishes a new "speech code" for the lexicon in the war on terror, as reported by the Associated Press and now available in the public domain.  These new "speech codes" recommended that analysts and policy makers avoid the terms jihad or jihadist or mujhadid or "al-Qaida movement" and replace them with "extremists" and by extension other non-specific terms.

Let's call this 'terrorism' by its real name.  It's official: We're fighting … terrorists.  You can also call them violent extremists if you like, but never use jihadist or mujahedeen or Islamo-fascist to describe our enemy.  These words are deemed pejorative and offensive, according to a recent Bush administration memorandum to federal employees whose jobs involve explaining our ongoing war to the public.


Bush's Favorite Muslim Fanatic:  When is a moderate Muslim not a moderate Muslim?  How about if he is an employee of a Saudi Wahhabi organization that has been identified by the Senate Finance Committee as one of a long list of Islamic charities that "finance terrorism and perpetuate violence"?  Last month, the White House appointed Talal Eid, an imam from Quincy, Massachusetts, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom….

Conservative Bush:  Conservatives have not been happy with George W. Bush.  For each brand of conservatism, there is a diffferent critique.  Not so with Ronald Reagan, whom conservatives uniformly praise for various reasons.  Seventy-nine percent of those in attendance at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference said they would prefer a candidate who is a Reagan Republican.  Three percent would go for a G. W. Bush Republican.  One gets the impression that Bush isn't even considered a conservative.

Not a Dime's Worth of Difference.  The president visited the Mexican border again this week, in yet another vain attempt to "revive his stalled efforts to overhaul U.S. immigration laws."  The substance of his comments was just warmed-up leftovers, couched in the same old phrases:  "comprehensive immigration reform," "family values did not stop at the Rio Grande," "they're doing jobs Americans are not doing," "I oppose amnesty," "a practical answer that lies between granting automatic citizenship to every illegal immigrant and deporting every illegal immigrant," and so on.

The Quixotic Quest of President Bush.  Where is the coherence in this "peace process?  How does it advance our strategy in what is properly called World War Four?  Harming democratic Israel and an ostensibly stable and relatively pro-western Jordan is not policy.  It harms those nations irreparably, paving the way for Arab massacres and weakens bulwarks of defense against growing militant Islam.  It makes all the tough talk about "the war on terror" more like tilting swords at windmills than real policy.

President Bush's New World Order Legacy.  With his record of defending American borders and national sovereignty in ruins, President Bush has decided to conclude his second term in office by making common cause with those who think America's future lies in appeasing the "international community."  He apparently wants his "legacy" to be that he cared for the rest of the world.  Watch your wallets — and your freedom.

The Public Trough Is Bigger Than Ever.  According to Michael Tanner's "Leviathan on the Right", federal domestic spending under President Bush has risen 27 percent in real terms, while discretionary non-entitlement spending has gone up 4.5 percent a year.  (Clinton's annual increase was "only" to 2.1 percent.)  Who'd have thought that a Republican president would challenge Lyndon Johnson's spending record?

Last Stand for American Sovereignty.  The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), now being pushed by the Bush Administration for a quick vote, is already starting to get rave reviews from the press, with the Sacramento Bee saying that protecting the oceans of the world could be Bush's "legacy."  The message to Bush is that he should go out as a liberal and he may salvage some of his reputation.  But he will lose what is left of his conservative base.

Republicans Really Are the Stupid Party.  George Bush has been the biggest spender ever to sit in the White House and although the GOP has improved marginally in fighting wasteful spending since the Democrats took over, they certainly haven't convinced anyone that they have much in common with the 1994 Republican revolutionaries who were responsible for balancing the budget in the Clinton years.

Sex Games:  Coming to a High School Near You.  Title IX turns 35 this month and the bad gals have officially won.  Sex quotas in sports under the anti-discrimination law are de rigeur on college campuses.  And the Bush administration's failure to even challenge this perversion of the law — concocted, for the most part, by and during the Clinton administration — means that eliminating men's sports opportunities in the name of "creating" opportunities for women now has bipartisan blessing.

James Dobson Just Doesn't Get It.  [President] Bush has been given a free pass (by Christian conservatives) on his unconstitutional, liberal, big-spending, socialistic, and imperialistic policies, because he "openly talks about his faith."  Never mind that President Bush's presidency more resembles Bill Clinton's than it does Ronald Reagan's.  Never mind that if George W. Bush did not have an "R" behind his name, one would assume that he was a protégé of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.  Because Bush "openly talks about his faith," he is accepted, defended, and lauded by the Religious Right.  If that is not shallow, I don't know what is.

President Bush has been too nice to Democrats.  One thing Republicans should have learned over the past six years is the importance of having a President who is a master communicator.  Unfortunately they have had to learn it by having a President who is not one.  Not only is President Bush not a master orator, but he has just been too darn nice to Democrats who are playing politics at the nation's expense.

State of the Union 2007:  A Counterproductive Energy Policy.  Overall, the energy plan described in this year's State of the Union would lead to higher, not lower, energy prices for the American people.

The phoniest scandal of the century (so far).  When will the Bush administration grow some guts?  Except for its resolute — read:  stubborn — position on Iraq, the White House seems incapable of standing up for itself and battling for its point of view.  The Democratic assault on the administration over the dismissal of United States attorneys is the most fabricated and phony of scandals, but the Bush people offer only craven apologies, half-hearted defenses, and concessions.

Is 2008 The Year Conservatives Abandon The GOP?  It is no hyperbole to say that conservatives throughout America are extremely disappointed and disillusioned with the national Republican Party. ... The Republican PartyÕs unwillingness to advance a genuine conservative has left millions of grassroots Republicans on the verge of leaving the GOP.

Bush Plays More Word Games With Immigration.  In his next to last State of the Union Address, President Bush once more called for the irresponsible, self-destructive immigration policy of mass amnesty.  The President unfortunately showed he has learned nothing from the bitter debate that has churned throughout the nation for the past few years.  The "decider in chief" has decided upon the wrong immigration stance, once more.

A Strong Critique of "Neo-conservatism" and "Compassionate Conservatism":  Once we peel away the sentimental rhetoric and cut through the doublespeak, compassionate conservatism's moral and political teaching boils down to this:  first, that needs -- the needs of others -- constitute a moral claim on your life; second, that you -- you the taxpayer, you the private individual -- have a "duty" to support -- nay, to love and support -- the poor; and finally, that the federal government must coerce your love and compassion by taking your wealth and giving it to "private" organizations that will use it to serve "those whom prosperity has left behind."

Signing Away Our Constitution:  The Bush administration … has adopted the use of the signing statement, affixed to legislation when signed into law, as a means by which the legislative power may be more fully exercised by the office of the president, despite and against the Constitution's sole delegation of this power to Congress.

The Conservative Case Against Bush:  We've been warned by the media, over and over again, that Republicans are reshaping America into a Puritan's paradise.  But at the end of the day, the media mostly won and the Republicans mostly lost.  Social conservatism is in little better shape now than it was when Bush was first elected.  In many ways, it is in worse shape.

Impostor:  How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.  George W. Bush came to the presidency in 2000 claiming to be the heir of Ronald Reagan.  But while he did cut taxes, in most other respects he has governed in a way utterly unlike his revered predecessor, expanding the size and scope of government, letting immigration go unchecked, and allowing the federal budget to mushroom out of control.  Despite their strong misgivings, most conservatives remained silent during Bush's first term.  But a series of missteps and scandals, culminating in the ill-conceived nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, has brought this hidden rift within the conservative movement crashing to the surface.

Forgetting the Consequences of Totalitarianism.  Last year Surgeon General Richard Carmona declared there is "no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke."  For effect he added, "I would not allow anyone in my family to stand in a room with someone smoking."  His opinion was supposedly based on 20 years of scientific evidence, and it has been cited as gospel by smoking ban supporters.

[This is the kind of statement one would expect from a Surgeon General serving under Al Gore or John Kerry.]

Fuel Grows On Trees.  Is there anything more depressing than yet another promise of energy independence in yet another State of the Union address?  By my count, 24 of the 34 State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973 have proposed solutions to our energy problem.  The result?  In 1973 we imported 34.8 percent of our oil.  Today we import 60.3 percent.  And what does this president propose?  Another great technological fix.  For Jimmy Carter, it was the magic of synfuels.  For George Bush, it's the wonders of ethanol.

Did someone mention ethanol?

Funding for 700-mile border fence falls short.  President Bush's budget includes enough money to build only half the U.S.-Mexico border fence Congress demanded last fall, leaving supporters of a 700-mile barrier seething Monday and immigration advocates shrugging that it was just an election-year ploy.

Bush Must Control the Borders.  The President continues to promote a dubious "guest worker" program that is based on a claim that has no evidence to back it up, and Bush, at this point in his presidency, has to know it.  What's fascinating to watch is how the media, who are extremely tolerant of illegal immigration, refuse to hold Bush accountable for his deceptions on this matter.

President Bush opens the border to Mexican trucks and drivers.  Anyone who does much driving on our highways in ordinary sedans knows how crowded with big trucks the highways already are.  President George W. Bush's latest concession to Mexico is to allow Mexican trucks for the first time to have open access to all our highways, roads and bridges.  It is painful to note that the Bush administration is less protective of U.S. interests than the late, unlamented administration of former president Bill Clinton.

Bush Administration Wants Flu Shots For Illegal Immigrants.  The Bush Administration has indicated it wants doctors, clinics, and hospitals to provide flu immunizations to illegal immigrants.  In an interview with KFOX-TV, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt was asked if the federal government has any safeguards to prevent illegal immigrants from catching the flu.  Leavitt responded by saying doctors should give flu shots to "every person."

Bush Gives Immigration Wink and Nod.  Using soft words to describe events, actions or persons in order to disguise their true nature is becoming a well-honed art among politicians in Washington and across the country, and nowhere more apparent than in efforts by the administration of President Bush and its supporters to sugarcoat the crisis of illegal immigration in and into the United States.

Pardons For Drug Dealers, Jail For Border Patrol Agents.  President George W. Bush has pardoned 14 criminals, including several drug dealers and a man convicted for bombing a coal mine, but he refused to pardon two U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to prison for intercepting an illegal immigrant drug smuggler at the Texas-Mexico border last year.

Bush Slammed as Border Patrol Agents Begin Prison Terms.  As two U.S. Border Patrol agents surrendered to federal marshals Wednesday afternoon [1/17/2007] to begin serving more than a decade in jail for shooting an illegal drug smuggler, a federal lawmaker and conservative advocacy group expressed outrage at President Bush for not pardoning the men.  "This is the worst betrayal of American defenders I have ever seen," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said of the president.

Border agents sent to prison.  Amid protests and a flurry of last-minute efforts by congressmen, two border patrol agents are scheduled today [1/17/2007] to begin long prison sentences for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug smuggler who was granted full immunity to testify against them.

Is Sleeping with a Kennedy un-American?  First it was George W. Bush who, at least metaphorically, cuddled with the Chappaquiddick Anti-lifeguard, also known as Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).  This Bush-Kennedy mini-group of Alcoholics Anonymous conspired to bring America "No Child Left Behind," which has added nothing but unproductive meddling by incompetent bureaucrats.

Conservatives slam Bush policies.  Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer was critical of Mr. Bush for what he described as the president's failure to more deeply inspire Americans after September 11.  "The president made a colossal mistake after 9/11 by simply asking people to shop," said Mr. Bauer, president of the conservative group American Values.

Veto when helpful.  A chart on the webpage of the Clerk of the House lists each President and his vetoes.  The frustrating and disappointing story of the Bush Administration's failure to control domestic spending is recorded.  No President since Dwight D. Eisenhower has vetoed fewer than the 21 bills President John F. Kennedy vetoed — that is, until George W. Bush.  He has vetoed only one bill despite serving nearly twice as long in office as Kennedy.  Signed into law by President Bush were expensive bills including No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage plan.

The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism.  Here are some hard facts.  Government spending has increased faster under George Bush and his Republican Congress than it did under Bill Clinton, and more people work for the federal government today than at any time since the end of the Cold War.  During Bush's first term, total government spending skyrocketed from $1.86 trillion to $2.48 trillion, an increase of 33 percent (almost $23,000 per household, the highest level since World War II).  The federal budget grew by $616.4 billion during Bush's first term in office.  If post 9/11 defense spending is taken off the table, domestic spending has ballooned by 23 percent since Bush took office.

Bush seeks $30 billion for AIDS program.  President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to authorize an additional $30 billion to fight AIDS in Africa over five years, doubling the current U.S. commitment.

Bush wants twice the funding for AIDS.  President Bush will propose doubling the funding to combat HIV/AIDS overseas in his last State of the Union address Monday, one of several new initiatives he says will demonstrate his intention to "sprint to the finish" of his time in office.  The five-year, $30 billion proposal would provide treatment for about 2.5 million people infected with the disease and preventive measures for about 12 million others.

The Editor says...
 First of all, 30 billion dollars divided by 2.5 million people = $12,000 apiece.  Sending 30 billion dollars overseas is not good foriegn policy, it is not going to help the U.S. in the slightest, nor will it fix the HIV/AIDS problem.

Update:
 AIDS funding boondoggle:  The Bush administration, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are all supporting legislation to fund the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) for five years.  The PEPFAR bill before the Senate would more than triple funding for the program from the current $15 billion to $50 billion.

Bush prepares to make deals with Democrats.  President Bush yesterday [12/20/2006] said his top priorities for working together with Democrats in Congress will be raising the minimum wage, renewing the No Child Left Behind education act, boosting energy alternatives to oil and completing an overhaul of the immigration system that includes a guest-worker program.

Bush Supports Democrats' Minimum Wage Hike Plan.  President Bush for the first time endorsed a specific plan for raising the federal minimum wage yesterday [12/20/2006], as he embraced Democratic calls to boost it by $2.10, to $7.25 an hour, over two years. … The president's endorsement of a minimum wage increase breaks with the position long held by conservative Republicans that the increase would hurt business and ultimately the economy.

George Romances the Nanny State:  An Interview with Bruce Bartlett.  Bruce Bartlett is a conservative economist who took degrees from Rutgers and Georgetown before serving in both the Reagan and (original) Bush administrations.  Mr. Bartlett has always been associated with supply-side economics.  Earlier this year he released Impostor:  How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, which vigorously refutes the notion that our president is a conservative in any meaningful way.

White House Considers Appointing Pro-U.N. Activist as Ambassador to the United Nations.  Various reports indicate that liberal Republican Richard S. Williamson is in the running for the post of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.  Williamson, a former U.S. deputy ambassador at the U.N., is also a former board member of the pro-U.N. lobby group, the U.N. Association, and favors "alternative financing mechanisms" for the world body.  This is a euphemism for global taxes.

The Bush Record on the U.N.:  Increased funding of the U.N. (U.S. contributions to the U.N. System from risen from $3.1 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $5.3 billion in fiscal year 2005).  Supports ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty.  Supported Ban Ki-moon, the South Korean foreign minister, as new U.N. Secretary-General, despite his support for global taxes.  Ordered Texas courts to comply with an International Court of Justice ruling in a death penalty case.  Renewed membership in UNESCO, at a cost of $67 million a year.

Did someone mention the United Nations?
This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart
A double thumping.  I'm doing my best to try and understand what message my president is trying to send us.  Last week, he told reporters that the Defense Secretary would be in place until the very final day of the president's term.  Turns out, that wasn't true at all — we now know that President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld made the decision "a few weeks ago."

Wait -- it gets worse...
 Letter shows Rumsfeld resigned before U.S. election.  Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the unpopular Iraq war, resigned as defence secretary before last year's November election but his decision was not announced until after the voting, according to his resignation letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday [8/15/2007].

Bush, in a Shift, May Speak at NAACP Convention.  After not appearing before the NAACP for five years, President Bush has tentatively agreed to speak to the group on Wednesday in what aides said was the latest White House effort to improve relations with African-American leaders.

Update:
 Feeding the Hand that Bites Him.  Last week, President Bush continued his policy of feeding the hand that bites him.  In the past, he has allowed Ted Kennedy to gut his education policy, petitioned intransigent Democrats to reform Social Security and Medicare, and sent representatives to reason with Cindy Sheehan. … This time, Bush went hat-in-hand to one of the prime forces in the racial grievance industry (behind Rainbow/PUSH and CAIR) and learned firsthand capitulation does not pay.

Historical amnesia at the NAACP:  Such partisan bigotry from the chairman of a supposedly nonpartisan organization makes it easy to understand why for five years Bush refused to attend the NAACP's annual conventions.  More of a mystery is why he changed his mind this year — and why, rather than attempt to refute Bond's venomous caricature of his party, he seemed to accept it.

Will President Bush Lurch Left?  No sooner had congressional Republicans lost the midterm elections, making them the opposition party in Congress, than President Bush called a press conference and made several statements that raised the question of whether these Republicans would also need to become the opposition party to his administration.

The era of big-government conservatism must come to an end.  The single-best thing the lame-duck GOP Congress can do is vote in a spending-limitation bill with balanced-budget targets for the next couple of years.  This would be a spending-cap pay-as-you-go, which means that any increased spending must be offset by lower spending in other parts of the budget.  Not higher taxes.  Reduced spending.

The president's most stubborn critics won't stop beating the Iraq and Katrina drums despite much success elsewhere.
 Give Bush a Break.  Lord knows I have my problems with President Bush.  He taps the federal coffers like a monkey smacking the bar for another cocaine pellet in an addiction study.  Some of his sentences give me the same sensation as falling backward in one of those "trust" exercises, in which you just have to hope things work out.  Yes, the Iraq invasion has gone badly, and to deny this is to suggest that Bush meant for things to turn out this way, which is even crueler than saying he failed to get it right.  But you know what?  It's time to cut the guy some slack.

Democrats Won't Check or Balance Bush.  We don't need Congress to become more liberal to fix what's wrong with Bush, we need Bush to become more conservative to fix what's wrong with Congress.  In his first year, Bush cut taxes.  Democrats tried to stop him. … Also in his first year, Bush pushed through the No Child Left Behind Act, dramatically increasing federal involvement in public schools.  Without significant Democratic support, this bill would have failed. … Sen. Ted Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, sponsored it.  Federal education spending has more than doubled since then.

To the Dismay of Some, Bush Takes Gentler Approach Toward Putin.  The last time they had a serious talk about Russian democracy, the room bristled with anger.  President Bush, aides recounted, pressed President Vladimir Putin about his crackdown on dissent.  And Putin threw it back in his face, asserting that Bush was no different because he had supposedly fired CBS anchorman Dan Rather.

Why I Will Not Vote for Any Republican.  In every area of domestic and foreign policy, the conservatives controlling the Republican Party have expropriated the central tenets of the left, while claiming to be an alternative.  This has created a false alternative to the political left, posing as its opposite but supporting the same basic goals.  This has sowed massive confusion in people's minds, and limited the American people to a choice of poisons.  This confusion is undermining people's capacity to even conceive of a true alternative to the welfare state and military defeat.

It's not hard to imagine that President John Kerry would have done the same.
 Congress is crying wolf on separation of powers flap.  House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a nearly unprecedented joint statement condemning the FBI raid and demanding that the FBI return the documents.  With all due respect, these claims are preposterous, and I don't believe President Bush should have intervened, even if just to provide a cooling-off period.

More about Congressman Jefferson's Brush with the Law.

Who Is The U.S. Senate Working For?  Recent legislative actions in Washington, D.C., raise the question of just who the U.S. Senate is working for. … The Senate Immigration bill is straight out of the United Nations' Agenda 21 plan for ruling the world.  There is Amnesty for all the Illegal Aliens lawbreakers who are here in violation of our Immigration laws.  The Senate is trying hard to convince voters that it's not Amnesty, but that is what the Senate bill provides.

If he said this before he was elected, I sure don't remember it.
 Gonzales says Bush opposes English as national language.  President George W. Bush has long opposed making English the country's national language, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Friday [5/19/2006], the day after the Senate voted to do so.

The President is sending mixed messages.
 Bush Wants Newcomers to Learn English.  The White House took both sides in a dispute over English being the national language Friday [5/19/2006] as a broad immigration bill moved toward a final Senate vote next week with one conservative predicting it will never become law.  Bush's support for the dueling sides doesn't stray from his long-held view on learning English, said White House press secretary Tony Snow.

Bush on English Assimilation:  Hipocrasia.  From ballot boxes to hospitals, workplaces, and even the Internet, President Bush's words and deeds are perpendicular to each other.  The Bush Administration aggressively promotes multilingual voting. … President Bush reaffirmed President Clinton's executive order that medical centers that accept federal money must provide free translators to foreign-language speakers. … Bush's hypocrisy is most vivid on his own website, WhiteHouse.gov.  Click the Español button and read what he did today … in Spanish.

There is a separate page about making English the official language of the U.S.

Bubba Dubya?  A curiously Clintonian turn in U.S. foreign policy:  The president seems to have reversed course.  He still speaks about democracy and the war against terror, but increasingly his administration charts the path of least resistance and paper compromise so dominant during the Clinton years.

White House compares illegal immigration to speeding.  The White House on Friday [5/26/2006] said a Senate bill that would grant legal status to illegal immigrants is analogous to a traffic law that allows a speeder to pay a fine and continue driving.  "If you had a traffic ticket and you paid it, you're not forever a speeder, are you?" White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said in response to questions from The Examiner.

Kick U.N. out of New York City.  What will be the legacy of George W. Bush?  Will it be the spending, the most aggressive we have ever seen from a Republican president?  Will it be the creation of a Medicare prescription drug plan, which has become the largest and most expensive new entitlement program in 40 years?  Perhaps it will be the president's utter refusal to hear the voice of the vast majority of his constituents on the issue of illegal immigration.

The drips who leak:  One could make a case that [Mary] McCarthy and her ilk have established a Vichy CIA — a separate agency dedicated to a counterwar with the administration or, more specifically, President Bush.  Bush didn't help himself much by appointing Gen. Michael Hayden to run the agency. … Selecting Hayden was bewildering, but this administration suffers from something akin to attention deficit disorder.  Its focus is so scattered as to be nonexistent at times.

12 Down:  Top secret war plans, 36 Across:  Treason.  The Bush administration is sounding very cross — and doing nothing.  Bush wouldn't want to get the press mad at him!  Yeah, let's keep the media on our good side like they are now.  Otherwise, they might do something crazy — like leak a classified government program monitoring terrorist financing.

President defies most Republicans on immigration.  As President Bush's poll numbers drop dramatically even among his base, the question most frequently asked by angry Republicans is:  Why, oh why, is Bush so stubbornly rejecting the advice of his supporters even though that advice is consistent with the thunderous message from public opinion surveys?

G. W. Bush's Liberal Legacy:  A Republican recently said to me that he no longer supports G. W. Bush, although he previously had voted for him.  "He's turned out to be a liberal just like his daddy," he said, "and I don't want a thing to do with him."  This seems to be a common theme echoing throughout the blogosphere, where pundits have realized that 'compassionate conservative' really means "liberal in disguise."  Is Bush a liberal?  On four out of five key issues, Bush has shown his liberal leanings.

Now how much would you pay?  Bush's answer to all problems seems to be more federal spending.  Perhaps this explains No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D and the 49 percent increase in discretionary non-defense federal spending since 2001.  The fallacy is that increased federal spending brings positive results.  Nope.  While Bush is free to brag he's spending two-thirds more on border security, this increased spending hasn't made the situation better.

Why Should the Faithful Believe Bush Now?  The Republican Party thinks its base of social conservatives is a nest of dummies who have no memories and respond like bulls whenever red flags are waved in their faces.  The people who should be angry this week are not liberals or gays or lesbians, but the president's most loyal supporters.

The census has grown beyond its bounds.  While the Patriot Act and National Security Agency wiretapping have received enormous attention and criticism from the mainstream media, another federal agency has been quietly gathering far more personal information about U.S. residents than those laws ever can.  And this unreported project affects thousands more people.  Our inquisitive federal government has been demanding that selected U.S. residents answer 73 nosy questions.  They are threatened with a fine of $5,000 for failure to respond.

[The invasive and unreasonable nosy questions on the census started under President Clinton.  So that's why we voted for a man who said he would "bring strong conservative leadership to the White House."  Sounds like the census is getting more intrusive, not less.]

Bush on Gas Prices:  Who's He Kidding?  With gasoline prices close to $3 a gallon, President Bush this morning [4/25/2006] gave a disingenuous speech to an alternative fuels association about what he was going to do to stem the rising tide.  There were a few flashes of candor and insight, but, on the whole, it was a sad example of political capitulation by a former Texas oilman who certainly knows better.  What Bush clearly understands is that prices rise when demand increases faster than supply, and that supply is being limited in the United States by government.

Gas Fumes Obscure GOP Base.  In short, the Republican base wants to know:  Where's all this partisan extremism we were promised? … The actual GOP response?  Hundred-dollar rebates.  Cash money, friend, just for drivin'.  We feel your pain:  Here, have some money we borrowed from someone else.

Republicans earning grassroots' disfavor.  When are Republican politicians going to wake up and quit playing footsie with obstructionist Democrats?

Is Bill Clinton Still President?  From time to time various wags have suggested that we send Bill Clinton to negotiate with the mullahs on our behalf.  It turns out it isn't necessary; we've just adopted his methods.

Bush's troubles — not Iraq, Katrina, or illegal aliens, but fuzzy principles.  On domestic spending matters, Bush again shows that Republicans often talk the talk and fail to walk the walk.  His father said, "Read my lips:  no new taxes" — and then raised them.  Yet many Republicans, thirsting for victory, supported Bush-43's call for a prescription benefit bill for seniors — the biggest expansion of Medicare since its inception in 1965.

Series of Setbacks Threatens Morale of Religious Right.  "You can cut it with a knife, that's how upset they are," said Richard Viguerie, a long-time member of the social conservative movement, which is largely evangelical and considered to be the base of last year's presidential victory.

Bush Pushes Renewable Energy at Colorado Lab.  President Bush on Tuesday [2/21/2006] acknowledged that Washington has sent "mixed signals" to one of the nation's premiere labs studying renewable energies — by first laying off, then reinstating, 32 workers just before his visit.

The real Bush?  The consensus on the Right was that President Bush's fifth State of the Union Address was his worst. … The president proposed that the government preside over a wide array of non-petroleum energy options.  That has all the characteristics of an "industrial policy," with the federal government picking winners and losers.  While violating the Republican Party's free market philosophy, this is a course with a lengthy pedigree of failure all over the world.

Addicted to what?  The first part of last Tuesday's State of the Union — on national security — was tough, clear, principled, well reasoned.  The second part was a laundry list, reminiscent of the worst of Bill Clinton.  I was nodding off when I heard the President Bush say, "America is addicted to oil."  Addicted to oil!  That woke me up.  America is no more addicted to oil than it is addicted to bread, to milk, to paper, to water, to computers….

Some Republicans ARE Conservative.  Typical of out-of-control domestic-spending programs are the new Medicare Part D prescription drug boondoggle and the disgracefully earmarked 2005 transportation bill.  Spending on a bloated government bureaucracy that Reagan Republicans once endeavored to eliminate entirely, like the Department of Education, is up 139 percent since Clinton left office.  So, this is what we've been fighting for?

Bush administration:  "Expect more government".  Do you ever get the sinking feeling when reading a serious piece that the author didn't realize the implication of his words?  One is immediately stricken with such sentiment when having a glance at the website detailing a new Bush administration initiative called "expectmore.gov." … The website itself is a farcical read worthy of Kafka.

Liberal in Chief:  Like most of his breed, our liberal in chief seems to regard religion as a mere opinion, an edifying individual option rather than a necessary social cohesive.  This is why he seems ill prepared to deal with the Muslim world, where they take a different view of it.

How I wasted my vote:  When I told others here on FreeRepublic that I would be voting for the Constitutional party candidates, I was told that I was wasting my vote if I were to vote for a third party.  I was told that we conservatives needed to stick together to work on getting Republicans candidates elected, that it was our only hope to reduce federal spending, reduce the size of the federal government and to get conservative judges appointed to the supreme court.  So I listened and voted Republican.

What a buddy you have, Mr Bush!  General Pervez Musharraf — your buddy, as you are fond of calling him — has seen to it that Omar Sheikh does not go to the gallows despite an anti-terrorism court having sentenced him to death three years ago.  From the so-called jail in Hyderabad, where he is provided with all the comforts and facilities he asks for — computers, Internet connections, fax machines, et cetera — Sheikh continues to mastermind acts of jihadi terrorism, violent attacks, and anti-US demonstrations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries.

Bush Beset by Political Miscues.  The bad news has been coming in waves, from furors over Hurricane Katrina and warrantless wiretapping to the error-plagued rollout of the new Medicare prescription drug program, Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident, growing civil strife in Iraq, and now the Republican revolt over the administration's Dubai port decision.

South Dakota starts up the debate.  Republicans around the country treated [South Dakota Gov. Mike] Rounds to an old-fashioned shunning.  President Bush brushed off South Dakota, repeating his oft-stated belief in exceptions for pregnancies initiated through rape and incest.  Not a single Republican of stature uttered so much as an "attaboy."

Resurrecting the line-item veto.  When his personal approval ratings were far higher than they are now, President Bush might have succeeded in reducing the size and cost of government.  Instead, he chose "compassionate conservatism" as his doctrine and big-government conservatism (which is a contradiction) as his calling.  Now the president, who has not vetoed a single bill in more than five years in office, wants Congress to give him line-item veto power.

Big Bush Budget:  The President's budget for Fiscal Year 2007 proposes aggregate federal spending that is 49 percent higher than in 2001 (the last Clinton budget).  While the President is calling for spending at the Department of Education to be reduced by 23 percent versus last year, it would still be 81 percent higher than in 2001.  That's a faster rate of growth than defense spending.

It was a bad week for limited government.
 Saying "No" to Spending Controls.  In a closed meeting early last week [January 2005], the Republican majority in the House of Representatives quietly kicked off the new legislative session by making it more likely that government will continue to grow rapidly. … Entitlement spending, especially on health care, is soaring and unless tackled will lead to enormous deficits or huge tax increases.

Presidential priorities:  Keeping America competitive requires affordable government.  The federal government is by far the biggest expense for successful American businesses and industrious American workers, because the industrious and successful pay nearly all federal income taxes.  Runaway government spending has increased the cost of production for business and lowered the standard of living for consumers.

Fury as Bush leaves Christ off his Christmas cards.  Conservative Christians in the United States who received Christmas cards from the White House this month are complaining that something is missing:  Christmas.  George Bush, the president, sent out cards with a generic message, wishing 1.4 million supporters a happy "holiday season".

Is Bush a Conservative?  The great problem affecting Americans these days is a mixture of apathy and anger over the growing realization that nothing they say or do matters.  It is a growing sense of hopelessness as government spirals out of control and beyond their reach.

Life is getting worse, and other myths:  At one of his State of the Union speeches, President Bush was applauded after talking about "spending discipline," but since he became president, the government has hired a million more people and increased spending more than on President Clinton's watch.  It's not just because of terrorism.  During Bush's first five years, spending at the Department of Labor was up 31 percent, Agriculture: 38 percent, Education: 81 percent.  And the new prescription drug benefit is yet to be counted.  Put a politician in power, and he'll take your money and spend it.  That's what politicians do.  Even Republicans.

No child left behind – Republican ode to socialism.  The Constitution grants no authority for the federal government to be involved in education, and for good reason:  centralizing all learning in one distant spot is a stupid, narrow, dangerous, communist idea, one which has throughout all the world's history led to despotism and slavery.  Thus our forefathers limited federal power to a few necessary objects like national defense and foreign policy, and not at all to education.

Gambling with the Children.  After decades of both parties supporting a limited federal role in educational matters, we now face a broad-based assault on public education from the Beltway.  State rights?  Local control?  This education law makes a mockery of those concepts as it imposes radical and often untested change strategies across all districts.  Republicans and Democrats should join together to challenge this serious violation of state rights.

The Bush education fix will only make it worse.  The President's proposal accepts the incorrect conclusion that the problem with education is simply an overblown bureaucracy that wastes federal funds and fails to enforce clear standards by rewarding bad schools.  His statement that "no child will be left behind" comes straight from the decade-old motto of the Children's Defense Fund, the group that claims Hillary Clinton as one of its leaders.  By being so off-the-mark, there just is no way the Bush proposal can address a single school reform issue.

The dried-up veto pen:  Last week, I was asked to testify before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. … I explained I am not particularly a deficit hawk, nor do the size of the Bush tax cuts bother me.  What really bothers me is the orgy of spending by Republicans.  It is just appalling that the recent highway bill had 5,000 "earmarks" in it, almost without exception, utterly unjustified pork barrel projects.

The Conservative movement is dead.  The appointments of John Roberts as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and Harriet Miers as associate justice serve as the epitaphs for the political movement.  But even before these betrayals, conservatism was on life support.  It could not have survived the irresponsible spending by the Republican Congress, approved by the president during the last five years.

It's My Party.  Today, with Republicans controlling both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, there is a widening credibility gap between their political rhetoric and their public policies.  What will happen to Republicans if these freedom-loving, grassroots activists don't show up for work next fall?

Bush is kicking away his base.  In December, the House passed a border-security bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.  The bill rejected support for Bush's guest worker/amnesty plan.  Since 88 percent of Republican House members voted for this bill, that should have been a wake-up call to the president.

VAWA Re-authorized.  On Thursday, January 5, 2006, President Bush signed into law a five-year, $3.9 billion extension of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), originally enacted in 1994 under President Clinton.  VAWA is a particularly pernicious piece of pork-barrel legislation that puts billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, and the imprimatur of the federal government, in the service of the radical feminist ideology that all men and boys are potential abusers who must be re-educated according to the dictates of the nation's left-leaning "domestic violence" industry.

President's knees go weak when confronted with feminist agenda.  We are more than five years into the Bush presidency, but it appears that former President Bill Clinton's feminist policies are still in force.  Is Bush a feminist, or is he just a gentleman who is intimidated by feminists and unable to cope with their unreasonable demands, tantrums and rudeness?  When it comes to public policy and personnel appointments, the result is the same.

Violence Against Women Act abuses the rights of men.  In January, President George W. Bush signed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act without public debate, even though evidence has surfaced that Congress should have examined before the law was extended.  The act, which costs nearly $1 billion per year, is one of the major ways former President Bill Clinton bought the support of radical feminists.  Why Republicans passed this bill is a mystery.  It's unlikely that the feminists who will spend all that money will ever vote Republican.

Utah takes on the Feds.  If you seek a window into conservatism's current consternations, look into Utah.  The nation's reddest state … is rebelling against President Bush's No Child Left Behind law.  Only three states have not challenged in some way NCLB's extension of federal supervision over education grades K through 12….

My pick for the court:  Members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, are leading the campaign to pressure President Bush into withdrawing the nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court.  "What a stupid, stupid mistake," said one member in a Washington Times article last week, describing the nomination.  A mistake?  Not on Bush's part.  The mistake was on the part of those who bought the spin that Bush was a conservative.

Too many yes-men.  Few are willing to risk their own status and power to tell the boss he's making a big mistake.  The latest flap over Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers is a perfect example. … Apparently no one stepped forward to warn the president what a monumentally bad idea he'd come up with when he selected Miers over dozens of other, better-qualified candidates.

An illusion ripped wide open:  The truth is now dawning on many movement conservatives that George W. Bush is not one of them and never has been.  They were allies for a long time, to be sure, and conservatives used Mr. Bush just as he used them.  But it now appears they are headed for divorce.

A self-imposed Borking.  Bush blinked — twice — and picked nominees he thought would provide the Democrats with no material for an attempted Borking.

Touching a nerve.  It has been a tough month or so for those of us on the right.  Face it, the media storm in New Orleans made the President look bad, and he has not risen to the occasion with the sort of rhetoric that came to his lips in the immediate aftermath of 9–11.  His palliative spending plans have also caused many to blanch, especially as the prospect of tax hikes looms to pay some of the bills for empty cruise ships, and the quarter trillion dollars demanded by Louisiana's Congressional delegation from the other 49 states.

GOP 'Spending Spree' Threatens the Party's Grip on Power.  Eleven years after Americans routed Democrats at the ballot box over undisciplined spending habits, breaking the party's monopoly on power in Washington, voters may be leaning toward a similar punishment of the Republican Party, with the issue again revolving around the dominant party's spending of taxpayer dollars.

AWOL in the War of Ideas.  "If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other.  Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one.  In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'"  It wasn't George Bush who said that.  It was George Orwell.

The GOP Battles a Litany of Troubles.  It's hard to tell which is more irritating for conservatives less than a year after they savored Republican election triumphs of 2004:  President Bush's latest pick for the Supreme Court or his high-dollar pledge for recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Blank check for repairs.  When asked Sept. 16 how much his grand program to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina will cost, he said, "It's going to cost whatever it's going to cost."  And, boy, will it ever.  The current estimate of taxpayer money needed to pay for Mr. Bush's grand scheme range from $150 billion to $200 billion.  And that's on top of a $612 billion increase in the federal budget since he took office in 2001.

Will the GOP be Katrina's Biggest Casualty?  Neither Tip O'Neill nor Jim Wright — two powerful former Democratic Speakers of the House famous for their big spending ways — could have said it better than Delay.  The worst thing about Delay's comment is not its factual unreality, bad as that is, but what the remark says about the GOP congressional leadership's attitude about spending our tax dollars.  "We've already cut it to the bone" or "there isn't any more fat to cut" or variations thereof were typical responses from O'Neill and Wright to critics of excessive federal spending.

The GOP Could Lose in 2006.  GOP-leaning voters are often not highly visible or "seen" in the fray of political combat.  They tend to be too busy to write letters to the editor or show up at protests.  They are more focused on what they regard as the serious business of living:  family, jobs, faith.  They are often an "unseen" majority, making their presence felt only on Election Day, if they believe their vote will make a difference.  If they think there is little real difference between what the two parties will do such voters can easily stay home — and do.

Stop Hillary now!  In Bush's campaign leading up to his win in 2000, it was made clear that Bill Clinton's troubles culminating with his impeachment in 1998 would not be mentioned — Clinton's abuse and misuse of high office was not suitable fodder for discussion at any official campaign function during the 2000 Republican National Convention.  Heroes of the movement to impeach Clinton were not invited to participate and were made to observe from a distance, lest campaign officials or the candidate himself be tainted by close association.

Is Bush a socialist?  He's spending like one.  The first excuse was the war. … Then there was the big increase in agricultural subsidies.  Then the explosion in pork barrel spending.  Then the biggest new entitlement since Lyndon Johnson, the Medicare drug benefit.  Then a trip to Mars.  When you add it all up, you get the simple, devastating fact that Bush, in a mere five years, has added $1.5 trillion to the national debt.

[Nobody ever had to ask if Ronald Reagan was a socialist.]

Big spender Bush runs out of credit with conservative allies.  The federal budget has gone up by a third to $2.47 trillion since he came to power.  This summer's $286 billion Transportation Bill was an exercise in indulgence, including 6,371 special favors, known as "pork" and worth $24 billion.  A surplus has turned into a record deficit.

President Bush is a nice guy, but he's no Grover Cleveland.
 Is it permissible?  In February 1887, President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing a bill appropriating money to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said, "I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit."

The Bush Betrayal.  In 2000 George W. Bush campaigned across the country telling voters:  "My opponent trusts government.  I trust you."  Little wonder that some of his supporters are now wondering which candidate won that election.  Federal spending has increased by 23.7 percent since Bush took office.

Miers, Bush, and a Discourse of Constitutionalism.  President Bush may have asked conservatives to just trust him one too many times.  On issues from the No Child Left Behind Act to prescription drugs, Bush has pulled his party along with policies many found distasteful by promising big political payoffs which have yet to materialize and (conservatives suspect) never will.  With Miers, they are being asked to make the biggest gamble yet.

Republican Revolution?  For reasons we can't begin to explain, the Republican Party is in the midst of an identity crisis.  Indeed, with each passing week, they behave more like the Democrats we elected them to displace.

Lame Duck, Big Spender.  Veronique de Rugy [of the American Enterprise Institute] has calculated that George W. Bush has boosted total inflation-adjusted discretionary spending in his first term by 35.1 percent.  To put that in context, chew on this:  LBJ — the Texas legend who created the Great Society and, for all intents and purposes, the Vietnam War — only boosted discretionary spending 33.4 percent.  What's more, the gap between Bush and LBJ will only grow.

Bush Pardons Coal Mine Bomber, 13 Others.  President Bush granted pardons Wednesday [9/28/2005] to 14 people, including a member of the mineworkers union who was convicted for his role in bombings at a West Virginia coal mine, a counterfeiter and a bootlegger.

All in the family.  President Bush and other Republicans … should recall the values of family and limited government that they touted when they were elected.  According to Census Bureau data, the relative levels of poverty in America are best predicted not by race, but by family makeup.

Supreme Court politics:  Sen. Kennedy has succeeded with the news media in establishing a new standard of "mainstream conservatism" for a [Supreme Court] justice.  President Bush has put forth "friendship" as a qualification for being named to the high court.  Bush is by far the bigger obstacle in the way of a conservative court.  While Kennedy's ploy presents a temporary problem, Bush's stance could be fatal.

Who are these Republicans?  Gone is the heady talk from the days of the Republican Revolution in 1994, when whole departments and agencies were to be eliminated.  Today, the corpulent state gobbles up taxpayers' money, and it is Republicans who declare that no "offsets" can be found for the new spending natural disasters will require.

Why Would Bush Adopt the Wild Rhetoric of the Race-Baiters?  Some conservatives are concerned with President Bush's New Orleans speech because of the unlimited federal spending it seemed to promise, but I was far more concerned with his arguable vindication of the wrongheaded notion that racial discrimination is responsible for the disproportionate impact of the flooding on blacks.

More articles about Hurrican Katrina.

Is the U.S. in Slow Motion to Socialism?  Just the increase in the budget this year is equal to what it cost for NASA to put a man on the moon.  Republicans in Congress have become so enamored with big government that they now celebrate a budget with a $100-billion increase as a sign of progress.

Stop this corporate scandal now.  Is the administration tolerating an increased risk of terrorism because it doesn't want to stop big businesses from hiring illegal aliens?

Republicans must keep focus on woes caused by illegal immigration.  Democratic Govs. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Janet Napolitano of Arizona have declared a state of emergency and asked for federal help to deal with the costs of the violence and property damage caused by illegal immigrants coming over their southern borders.  If President Bush lets these partisan Democrats get to the right of him on the immigration issue, all Republicans will suffer in the next election.

United States of North America.  Many of President Bush's staunch supporters, who see him as a flinty-eyed custodian of our national security, are puzzled over what they see as his uncharacteristic squishiness on the issue of protecting our borders.  They don't understand that George W. Bush has long been a proponent of amalgamating the United States with Mexico, and is an unabashed proponent of regional integration as well.

More material on Immigration Issues.

Attention:  Deficit Disorder.  So what should President Bush do to deal with a potential economic problem and prevent a clever Democrat from outflanking him to the right on the deficit?  By all means, veto the monstrous transportation bill that is now worming its way through Congress.  It would be the President's first veto in four and a half years of office, and it would send a powerful message that the days of uncontrolled spending are over.  [He should also] revisit the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which has turned into a boondoggle even before it has become fully operational.  This entitlement program alone will add $700 billion to federal deficits over the next decade.

More articles about Money Down the Drain.

Under Bush, Federal Spending Increases at Fastest Rate in 30 Years.  President George W. Bush [became] the first full-term president since John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) to not veto a single bill.  The result is a congress that has been completely unconstrained in satiating its appetite for pork and corporate welfare.

Is it time for conservatives to dump the GOP?  Thanks to the incredible expansion of federal entitlements, regulations and pork spending sanctioned by the GOP leadership in Congress since 2001, there is virtually no chance that Big Government is going to be shrunk even a little any time soon.  And since there is no sign the folks running Congress are willing to change course, why shouldn't conservatives dump the GOP?

TSA budget proposal rewards incompetence. The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2006 budget includes a massive tax increase on every American who uses air travel. … The total tax burden represents 26 percent of a typical $200 ticket.

Rhetorical question:  How many of you thought you were voting for higher taxes when you voted for Bush??

 Congress Approves $800 Billion Increase in Debt Ceiling.  The U.S. Congress approved an $800 billion increase in the nation's $7.384 trillion debt limit, the third increase in the government's borrowing limit since President George W. Bush came to office.

The Republican Spending Explosion:  Although defense spending has increased in response to the war on terrorism, President Bush has made little attempt to restrain nondefense spending to offset the higher Pentagon budget.  Nondefense discretionary outlays will increase about 36 percent during President Bush's first term in office.  Congress has failed to contain the administration's overspending and has added new spending of its own.  Republicans have clearly forfeited any claim of being the fiscally responsible party in Washington.

Has the GOP Lost Its Soul?  Bush has basically stepped aside, not once exercising his veto, compared to 78 vetoes by Reagan, who had to deal with powerful Democrat majorities in the House throughout his White House years.  Having a president who won't veto unleashes the big spenders.

Federal Programs That Survived the Republican Revolution:  A major reason for all the new spending is the inability or unwillingness of Republicans to eliminate virtually any government program.  Many of the more than 200 programs that the Republicans pledged to eliminate in 1995 in their "Contract with America" fiscal blueprint now have fatter budgets than they had before the changing of the guard.

Bush's Overspending Problem:  The administration has failed to tackle the serious overspending problem in the discretionary budget.  Indeed, based on his first three budgets, President Bush is the biggest spending president in decades.

Bush's Achilles' Heel:  Governement Spending Is Out of Control.  Sadly, a cursory inspection reveals that the president is engaged in an overspending frenzy that continues to reward programs that should be abolished.

Drugs for the Elderly … and taxes for the children.  It makes no budget sense to create a new elderly entitlement because of the large federal deficit and the looming financial crisis in Medicare.  If Medicare were truly reformed with drug costs offset one-for-one with cuts elsewhere, it would make sense.  But if Congress simply dishes out more taxpayer money, gray-haired voters will be empowered to demand even more from presidential campaigners next year.

The Bush Administration Favors a "Strong" China!  "The United States seeks a strong, prosperous and transforming China, and we support strong economic and political ties between the EU and China," stated Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, during an April 14 congressional hearing.

Conservative group bashes Bush policies.  A blunt critique being released today by the Heritage Foundation says President Bush and the Republicans have too often pushed big spending programs, contrary to their campaign promises, made again in 2004, to move the government in a more conservative direction.  In a surprisingly critical assessment of Mr. Bush's policies and programs of the past four years, the conservative think tank … took him to task for massive spending increases in Medicare entitlements, education and farm subsidies, and for imposing protectionist steel tariffs that hurt consumers and manufacturers.

The dreariest political spring.  The single biggest problem facing Americans today seems to be rising gasoline prices, with jobs and the economy following suit.  Yet seldom does Bush even talk about energy.  Another key issue of discontent is immigration.  The president seems to want more of it, while the public clearly wants less.

Bush, the Left-wing Utopian Interventionist, Emerges.  George W. Bush has "grown" in office, as the Washington media likes to say.  That is, he seems to have taken a hard turn to the left.  He has always been rather left on social issues:  expanding the federal role on education, expanding Clinton's national service corps, and all that.  We were told, however, that he would at least be different than Clinton on foreign policy.  All that nonsense about nation building that the leftist utopians used to parrot about places like Haiti, Kosovo and Somalia would be replaced by a more hard nosed realism and foreign policy based on American interests.

Bush Unveils $2.4 Trillion Fiscal 2005 Budget.  $521 Billion Deficit Projected.

Bush Supports Incompetent Annan.  The United States expressed confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday [12/9/2004] and said he should remain at the helm of the United Nations, an abrupt turnaround from its refusal to back him last week after a U.S. senator called for his resignation.

A less conservative Bush?  Now that George W. Bush never will have to face the electorate again, is he sidestepping toward the middle?  Is he looking more like his father and less like Ronald Reagan?

Bush Immigration Plan Meets GOP Opposition.  President Bush's plan to liberalize the nation's immigration laws to allow millions of undocumented workers the opportunity for legal status appears to be on a collision course with newly aroused sentiment among House Republicans pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration.

International Monitoring of U.S. Election Called "Frightening".  Tom DeWeese, president of American Policy Center, [says] "Bush continues to give conservatives the rhetoric of sovereignty, independence and strength of the United States, and he continues to give the [opposite] actions." … "It's just outrageous this administration would allow this to happen."

Where's that religious fanatic we elected?  On the 32nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade … President Bush told a pro-life rally in Washington that a "culture of life cannot be sustained solely by changing laws.  We need, most of all, to change hearts." … We've been talking about abortion for 32 years.  All the hearts that can be changed have been changed.

Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush:  George W. Bush professes to be a Christian, goes to church, makes references to Bible verses, and says, "God bless America," but so did Bill Clinton, so this alone cannot be sufficient to win our vote.  Like Clinton, George Bush's fruit was evident to all with eyes to see during his campaign against Gore.  Many Christians were undoubtedly innocently ignorant of George W. Bush's liberal tendencies and so easily susceptible to his conservative rhetoric, but far too many were willfully blind to his bad fruit.

Bush Administration Sells Out Property Rights.  During his 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush repeatedly promised the nation that "Help is on the way."  Property rights victims, especially those in Midwestern and Western states, cheered the President's message and came out in droves to support him on Election Day.  Finally, there would be an end to the reckless Clinton regime that treated landowners like second-class citizens and barriers to radical green utopia.  Or would there?

Bush Praises Clinton, Unveils Portrait.  With old political grudges left unmentioned, former President Clinton returned to the White House for the first time Monday [6/14/2004] and listened with delight as President Bush praised him for his knowledge, compassion and "the forward-looking spirit that Americans like in a president."

No child left unmedicated.  Big Brother is on the march.  A plan to subject all children to mental health screening is under way, and pharmaceutical companies are gearing up for bigger sales of psychotropic drugs.  Like most liberal big-spending ideas, this one was slipped into the law under cover of soft semantics.  Its genesis was the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health created by President George W. Bush in 2002.

Bush caves to Democrats… again.  You've probably heard by now, but George Bush has once again managed the nearly impossible physical feat of handing his head to the Democrats … again.  He gave up; ran for the hills; threw in the towel; bailed.  Tragically, didn't really get anything of real value for his craven surrender.  He gave the Democrats almost a complete victory.  The issue this time is the nomination and confirmation process for federal judges.

Right wing sees betrayals.  "It's Clintonlike doublespeak in a Republican platform:  I'm against amnesty but let me define what amnesty is," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican.  "The president is wrong not to reach out to his base, which opposes amnesty.  This pandering to Hispanic voters is going to get the president into more trouble than if he dealt with illegal immigration forthrightly."

For English, please press '1'.  Look at our voting booths, where local and state election officials across the country are being forced to provide foreign-language ballots, bilingual poll workers and voting materials to non-English-speaking people.  In March, the Bush administration ordered Harris County, Texas, to provide all voter registration and election information and supplies, including the voting machine ballot, in Vietnamese as well as English and Spanish.

"Sexual Orientation" Should Not Be a Protected Class.  During the previous administration, President Clinton issued an executive order making "sexual orientation" a protected class in the federal government's discrimination policy.  Clinton's order went way beyond any act of Congress or U.S. law and raised "sexual orientation" to the level of race and religion.  This was clearly a move to satisfy the homosexual political lobby.  It is still in effect!

Bush Wants $18 Million More for National Endowment for the Arts.  President Bush will ask Congress for an $18 million budget increase for the National Endowment for the Arts, an agency whose budget was slashed a decade ago for supporting what critics said was obscene art.

On Spending, Bush Is No Reagan.  During his first three years in office, Reagan actually decreased non-defense discretionary spending by 13.5 percent.  [PDF file]

Ethanol mandate sparks Democrats' opposition.  Will Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) intercede with Sacramento politicians to protect the California marketplace for pickup trucks, minivans, and SUVs?  Feinstein is not widely known for her devotion to free-market economics and opposition to big-government mandates.  Neither is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.  But in the ongoing clash over national energy policy, Feinstein and Clinton have staked out an anti-corporate welfare position that's to the right of President George W. Bush.

A Threat Greater than Terrorism:  Even though many in Washington pledged themselves to fiscal responsibility, federal spending has been skyrocketing in recent years.  At $20,000 per household, federal spending is at its highest levels since World War II.

The Gangster State:  In a free society, the police protect citizens, but in a police state, they protect government from its citizens.  This police state mindset is now more deeply entrenched under Bush than Clinton.

Bush:  A Pro-Life President?  A truly pro-life president would oppose abortion without exception, and would view the embryo as life as opposed to potential life.

Conservatives Criticize Cheney's Gay Marriage Comments.  Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, drew criticism from both proponents and foes of gay marriage after he distanced himself from President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.  At a campaign rally in this Mississippi River town Tuesday, Cheney spoke supportively about gay relationships, saying "freedom means freedom for everyone," when asked about his stand on gay marriage.

Cheney Backs Key Element of Homosexual Agenda.  Homosexual advocacy groups offered a lukewarm response to Vice President Dick Cheney's remarks on Tuesday [8/24/2004], even though Cheney – in expressing his personal feelings on same-sex marriage – is more in line with the homosexual community than Democrat John Kerry is.

New Conservative Magazine Declares Independence from GOP.  The $7 trillion unfunded liability of the new Medicare prescription drug bill created by a Republican Congress and signed by President George Bush [recently] is the straw that breaks the camel's back, as it is the largest expansion of non-defense discretionary spending since the Great Society.

White House Backs Clinton Order on "Sexual Orientation:.  Bush administration spokesman Trent Duffy on April 8 said the president supports a Clinton-era policy of treating "sexual orientation" like civil rights categories listed by Congress in federal workplace law.

Learning globally:  The Bush administration has begun issuing grants to help spread a United Nations-sponsored school program that aims to become a "universal curriculum" for teaching global citizenship, peace studies and equality of world cultures.

The party of big spenders:  Once upon a time a Republican candidate for president named George W. Bush painted his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, as a reckless big spender whose fiscal policies would mean that "the era of big government being over is over."  So where do things stand three years later?

Do We Have a Conservative Pary in the Country Anymore?  "Listening to President Bush deliver his State of the Union speech reconfirmed to me that conservatism is dead within the national Republican Party."

George "Big Brother" Bush?  During the current war on terror — including the war on Iraq — George Bush has arguably acted more and more like Big Brother, the omniscient dictator in George Orwell's 1984.  Now that Bush has declared that the major combat operations against Iraq are over, he appears to be turning his sights towards enhanced domestic spying, one of the major elements of police states.

Principle Before Party:  The German translation of the phrase "Homeland Security" is "Schutz Staffel."  The Nazis shortened it to "SS."  A massive, intrusive cabinet-level agency with power beyond the wildest dreams of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson combined has just been established under Republican rule.  The Bush administration put our country back into UNESCO.  The Bush Administration is moving forward with plans to put illegal aliens on our already-bankrupt Social Security system.  Indeed it wants a full amnesty granted to millions of outlaw aliens who disregarded our rule of law just to sneak in here.

McCain, Hagel Fed Up With Congressional Spending.  Said [Nebraska's Chuck] Hagel:  "Republicans used to believe in balanced budgets.  Republicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility, limited international entanglements and limited government.  We have lost our way."

Amnesty and Betrayal:  President Bush's proposed immigration reform package is a shocking betrayal of our nation's sovereignty, culture and economy.  It must not be allowed to pass.

Bush's Coming Amnesty Plan.  Get ready for a battle royale to save our borders.  The Bush administration and pro-immigration invasion Democrats and Republicans in Congress are planning a big move this year to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens now residing in the United States.

Medicare Boondoggle Angers Conservatives:  President Bush's $520 billion deficit, and his low-ball estimate of the massive expansion of Medicare, have the party's base seething.

It's Time to Roast the Pig.  The National Endowment for the Arts received $104,769,000 in the year 2001.  This was an increase by $7,000,000 from the previous year; sadly, this took place under President George W. Bush's watch.

The criminal raid on Social Security:  Unbelievably, the White House is trying to convince us to embrace this global ripoff because it "rewards work."  No, it rewards criminal behavior.  The plan will siphon off the hard-earned tax dollars of American workers who may never see a dime of their confiscated earnings and fork it over to foreigners guilty of at least four acts of federal law-breaking:  crossing the border illegally, working illegally, engaging in tax fraud and using bogus documents.


Space Exploration Section:

Let us disregard for just a moment that there is nothing in the Constitution which authorizes the exploration of other planets.  What is driving President Bush's reckless spending proposals for new manned missions to the Moon and Mars?  Perhaps he admires the Kennedy Space Center and the Johnson Space Center and wants to believe that someday there might be a lunar outpost with his name on it.  What else could explain this recent determination to spend money on space exploration like there's no tomorrow?  Is he so concerned about his re-election that he no longer cares about high taxes and a seven trillion dollar national debt?

Bush's Real Failure:  His failure lies in the fact that he cut taxes while expanding the size of government (i.e. non-defense spending) to unprecedented levels, perhaps as much or even more than President Gore would have done.

Report:  Bush Wants a Mission to the Moon.  President Bush wants to send Americans back to the moon — and may leave a permanent presence there — in a bold new vision for space exploration, administration officials said yesterday. [12/03/2003]

Moon, Mars Proposal Stirs Mixed Reaction.  The prospect of sending astronauts back to the moon and maybe on to Mars is stirring a mix of excitement and skepticism.

Bush to Announce Manned Mars Mission.  President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said Thursday night. [01/08/2004]

Related item:  Space Station Billions Over Budget.  Reports of multibillion-dollar cost overruns on the International Space Station have experts predicting hard times for NASA's human space-flight program.

In my opinion, It's Time to Scrap NASA completely.  The Cold War is over.  NASA no longer has any mission that is vital to the US taxpayer.  NASA's continued existence depends upon the public-relations benefits associated with high-profile manned missions.  But flying around in circles studying the effects of zero-G on plants and insects benefits nobody.  Searching on other planets for evidence of life and/or developing a "theory about the origin of the universe" is a ridiculous waste of money.  There is such a theory in the first chapter of the Bible, widely available at no cost.  A truly conservative leader would realize that.


I could go on and on...  So I will, on page two.  If your jaws are tightening after reading this page, you'll be even more upset after reading the rest.

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Updated December 13, 2024.

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