That’s Right Nate

This week, the Republicans in the Senate attempted to filibuster funding for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.   They were ultimately defeated 63-33 on the vote, but a lot of people still don’t understand why 33 of the 40 members in the Republican caucus would oppose troop funding.   Since the vote Republicans have been accused of not supporting our troops, being hypocritical, and not wanting our brave men and women in the middle east to have combat armor.

Well, I have news for these Democrats.   Nobody supports our troops more than the Republican party.   If you don’t believe me listen to a Republican Senator and a Democrat Senator speak.  Look how many times the Republican will mention the troops and how rarely the Democrat does.   I think being remembered is a lot more important to the brave men and women overseas than any funding would be.   My mother taught me when I was a little boy, that it’s the thought that counts.

Now, about the body armor—I DON”T WANT OUR TROOPS TO GET BODY ARMOR.   Why not?   Face it, with the educational system in this country and the lowered standards by our armed forces, the men and women of our military are as brave as they come, but they’re not necessarily too bright.   If you give these 18 year olds body armor, they’re going to think that they’re even more immortal than they already do.   I think the body armor actually increases the risk these green troops face.   It works the same way that providing teen age drivers with seatbelts or the working poor with health care does.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a blistering letter Thursday warning of a “serious disruption” in the military’s ability to pay troops. “It is inconceivable to me that such a situation would be permitted to occur with U.S. forces actively deployed in combat,” Gates wrote.

I guess somebody needs to learn that there are more important things than money.

In an effort to maintain dogmatic purity, GOP leaders have begun circulating a 10 point pledge for Republican candidates to show that they are sufficiently pure to be Republicans.   This pledge will be debated at the party’s January meeting in Honolulu.   I tried to contact friend of the blog Congressman Jack Kimble (R-CA) about the purity pledge, but I was unable to contact him.   In an effort to attract diversity, Republicans only have to agree to 8 of the 10 points.

10. We will pronounce nuclear as nuculer when discussing energy or foreign policy.

9.  Every week, we will attempt to see if I can spot any foreign countries from my back porch.  If I can, I will keep tabs on them.

8.  We will not giggle at important conservative phrases like “Tea Bag” and “Going Rogue”.

7. We will talk non-ironically about our God fearing conservative values established by people like Ayn Rand and Thomas Paine.

6. We will keep government out of health care except in cases like Terri Schiavo, we will keep government out of people’s personal lives unless they are gay, and we will follow the Constitution when it serves my party’s interests.

5. We will not bow to foreign heads of state and in fact shaking hands kind of makes us queasy.

4. We oppose using tax payer dollars to support abortion or unjust wars of aggression.

3. We oppose a government option for health care because a private company cannot possibly compete with a government program.

2. We support the expansion  charter schools because private companies can educate our children better than any public program.

1. We believe that every time Glenn Beck cries, an angel gets his wings.

The best thing about being a Republican is sometimes hard to put a finger on.  I enjoy the moral superiority of my political positions as much as the next guy and Republican women are out of sight.   They don’t call it Fox News for nothing if you know what I mean.   However, I think the best thing about being a Republican is that we are the party of self-reliance.  We believe in pulling ourselves up by own own bootstraps and that is also the American spirit.   Nowhere do I see this Republican can do spirit as clearly as in the area of foreign policy.

• Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is in Honduras in order to give his support to the junta who recently launched a coup against a leftists President.  This is the kind of guts that Obama and the other countries in the region have lacked in their condemnation of seizing government power by force.
• Senator Jim Inhoffe (R-OK) who I recently described as one of our best hopes against the forces of science hoping to undermine our country’s values is going to Copenhagen to present the other side on the global warming debate.
• House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel where he spoke out against President Obama’s opposition to expanding settlements.
• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials  not to trust America’s budget numbers. “One of the messages I had — because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor,” said Kirk, “is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed.”
• Sarah Palin (R-?) recently gave a speech in Hong Kong where she criticized America’s foreign policy in a wide variety of issues.

As you can see, we’ve stopped waiting for the Obama presidency to make foreign policy decisions for us.  We’ve taken the initiative and we’re making our own more sensible foreign policy.  This is exciting, but I believe we can do much more and we must.   As a party, we must join together to issue an extremely strongly worded ultimatum to both Iran and North Korea that we are through pussyfooting around and we will not accept their continued nuclear threat.  We should let them know that if they do not back down we will hire an army of military contractors to crush their petty regimes.

Furthermore, it is time for us to let the rest of the world know we are done apologizing.   Obama has his embassies in other countries, we should have our own embassies too.   Let the other countries in the world know that we will be conducting our own foreign policy from now on.   Most of the military is Republican regardless of what they tell you and you know that they will follow us.  If we want more troops in Afghanistan, let’s just ask the troops and tell them it’s for the GOP.  This is the vision our founding fathers had for this democracy where know man shall have his foreign policy dictated to him by an unjust tyrant, but shall create his own foreign policy with other like minded individuals.

Like me, most of you probably got that RNC Membership Survey this week and have been a bit slow filling it out.  I mean, when things are going well for your party (Thanks Obama Recession), it is hard to take the time to communicate your enthusiasm sometimes.  I decided to fill out my Republican survey online as motivation to get my butt in gear.

1. Why did Republicans lose the White House and Congressional seats in the 2008 elections? Check all that apply.

Iraq War
Poor Economy
Government’s Response to Katrina
Republican Scandals
Republicans acted like Democrats
President Bush’s policies
Liberal Media
Other:

OK, I’m checking Republicans acting like Democrats and Liberal Media those are for sure.  The other ones sound too much like blaming us.  I am also filling out other–”I believe it was due to a large number of illegal aliens being registered illegally by ACORN and Catholic Charities.”

2. What are the key strengths and beliefs of the Republican Party that we can build on? Check all that apply.

Social Issues
Family Values
Ethics
Free Markets
National Security
Fiscal Discipline
Limited Government
Personal Responsibility
Pro-Life
Other:

I’m checking them all and going with an other of  “I am continually amazed at our ability to stand up for morality as a party even when we as individuals sometimes fall short of it.  Our strong morals and our willingness put fiscal responsibility over giving handouts to lazy people who don’t want to get jobs and our willingness to stand up to terrorism by any means necessary including torture.”

3. What are the weaknesses of the Republican Party? Check all that apply.

Bad Messaging
Poor Response to Democrats
Republicans who don’t vote like Republicans
Standing Up for Principles
Need to Lead in Congress
Other:

No Other needed on this one.   We need to stop Republicans from voting like Democrats.  Once we find those people we need to deal with them.  We also need to lead in congress.  Let’s start demanding committee leaderships.  We did get almost half the votes.

4. What is the best way to encourage and register new voters in your community? Check all that apply.

Door-to-Door visits
Online Social Networking
E-mail
Personal Appearances by Republican Leaders in Your Area
Radio Ads
Interaction at Community Events
Online Advertising
Other:

How did they leave out gun shows?  Tell me that isn’t an obvious oversight.   NASCAR races is another nobrainer as are  conservative churches.  You find me a man with enough faith in God to antagonize a poisonous snake and I’ll show you a potential Republican.

5. What technology would you like to see the RNC make better use of to grow our Party? Check all that apply.

More Aggressive E-mail Campaigns
More Aggressive Text Messages
More Aggressive use of Twitter
More Social Networking Sites like Facebook and MyGOP
No Opinion
Other:

Michael Steele has convinced me, the best way to get our message out is by kickin some dope rhymes and layin down some mad lyrics.  “Obama don’t want your change.gov.  You’re worse than Doctor Strangelove.  You’re runnin up debt like MC Hamme.  Now the GOP’s gonna teach you manners.”   You can use that if you want just credit me.

6. What can the Republican Party do to earn and maintain your trust?

We live in a cynical, cynical world and politics is a business of touch competitors, but the party completes me.  I could no more leave this party than I could start recycling.  No matter what happens from here on out, you’ve got my support and I will always have your back.

Representative Pete Sessions of Texas

Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX) is a very good man.  I think he’s one of the people who best knows how we can retake Congress and the White House because he is both a brilliant politician and a splendid tactician.  Yesterday, Sessions said “Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban and that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban…I’m saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.”

This is indeed a brilliant strategy, but before we begin to wire college Republicans with suicide belts and send them into feminist poetry readings, we should instead reimagine ourselves as sexual predators.  Now, before people jump all over me I’m not saying we should be sexual predators, merely that we should act like sexual predators.  I found a list of the traits of sexual predators from no less a respected expert than Dr. Phil.  I believe this should be our playbook going forward:

1. Refusal to take responsibility for actions and blames others or circumstances for failures- After the last 8 years, we definitely need to work hard at this one.  Remember, it is the Obama Recession.  Remember it is Obama’s disastrous foreign policy that is failing us.

2. A sense of entitlement – This is going to be easier than I thought.  We all have this in spades.  That’s why we’re Republicans in the first place.

3. Need for power and control – Three for three!

4. Lack of Empathy – This is going to be tough for us, but we can do it.  I remember when Hurrican Katrina hit, I was so moved that like a lot of other Republicans I almost donated blood.  The Heritage Foundation makes an excellent start for us here.

5. Inability to form intimate relationships with adults- We have that one covered too.

Now, knowing that our grand old party has a lot in common with these wretched creeps and lowlifes we can see exactly what our path to the future must be.  We must look at the American people in the eye and smile at them as we keep up a facade of helpfulness and respectability.  Only by doing this can we gain their trust and thus gain the White House.  Behind closed doors we can exchange our conservative philosophies all the while keeping a respectful front.

Of course, if this doesn’t work I’m ready to try taking us in the Taliban direction instead.   Maybe, what we need to do is be like the Nazis and use a lighting war approach to destroy the Democrats before they know what hit them.  In any event, if we go the Taliban route, I can’t think of anybody I’d rather have for my Mullah than Pete Sessions.

Despite, dreary poll numbers, the Republican members of the House of Representatives have found a way to raise morale.  They have taken to handing out spirit awards to each other for speaking on the floor of the house.

“It’s a spirit award,” said Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, a past recipient of caucus awards for his floor speeches.  Wilson says his speechifying has won him busts of Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt.

“I did get a plaque one time,” said the clearly excited Wilson.  The awards are given out at GOP award ceremonies.  Recently, Representative Kay Granger of Texas organized an award ceremony for those 8 Republican Representatives who were courageous enough to take the floor and speak about energy policy where the winners got a small oil can.

I love this idea and I am proud that it is my party that came up with this spirit raising idea.  Public speaking is terrifying and the number of issues that members of congress have to deal with is daunting.  It really isn’t surprising that many members are too timid or too uninformed to speak up.   This award program will help House Republicans overcome both problems.