Category Archives: Conservatism

May 17, 2013

How Limbaugh, Thomas, Bean produced conservative warrior Andrew Breitbart

“Hating Breitbart” documents the battles Andrew and his empire waged on the media stage as they fought for a voice, and the right to have their voices heard in a body politic dominated by one party rule of thought.

This week my new film, “Hating Breitbart,” about the life and contributions of the late self-described conservative “middle class” media mogul Andrew Breitbart, opens in theaters across the country.

Like many, in his youth Andrew didn’t self-identify as a conservative. He grew up in a very liberal section of a very liberal city inside a very liberal state: Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, respectively — an ideological trifecta that does a pretty thorough job of eliminating any competition of ideas.

One of the key scenes in “Hating Breitbart” comes when Andrew’s father-in-law Orson Bean, describes the genesis of Andrew’s political transformation from typical Brentwood liberal to a warrior for the conservative cause and a tireless critic of the left-wing media.

Bean recounts how Andrew scoffed at him for having a book by Rush Limbaugh on his desk. “You have a book by Rush Limbaugh?” Andrew incredulously asked.

In what would prove to be one of the transformational moments of Breitbart’s political coming of age, Bean gave his future son-in-law his copy of that Rush Limbaugh book and said, “Why don’t you take it home and read it.”

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Poll: Conservative Support for Marco Rubio Plummets

The latest Public Policy Polling data bears sobering news for Senator Marco Rubio, showing his support among conservatives has substantially decreased since last month.

When asked for their preferred GOP candidate, only 17% of “very conservative” respondents favored Rubio, while only 18% of “somewhat conservative” respondents favored Rubio.

This is a steep decline from the same poll’s findings in April, when Rubio’s support was 26% among the“very conservative” and 22% among the “somewhat conservative.”

The survey was conducted between May 6–9th. The survey released in April was conducted between March 27–30th. The “Gang of 8″ bill, spearheaded by Senator Rubio, was released April 17th.

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May 14, 2013

Conservative Artists Should Stick It to the (Liberal) Man

It has become a popular mantra of progressives to claim that conservatives are unable to contribute in any meaningful way to art or entertainment in America.

Having heard this diatribe for most of the last decade in response to my own work, I have become curious to discover the reasoning for this belief. One would expect, upon hearing such an assertion denouncing one’s own talent to come with a laundry list of reasons; or at least some links to an obscure, publicly-funded research paper. But one would be wrong. The sole defense for the assertion that conservatives are not capable of creating art is that we have no soul. Questions of skill and aesthetics don’t even come into play.

Ironically, these same people will argue that there is no progressive stranglehold on the arts in America. It only takes a few mouse clicks on the average art site or sampling of a popular art magazine to see that this is not true. I hear stories from other conservative artists regularly which describe their own experiences with the unofficial blacklisting of all things conservative in the arts.

I live near Atlanta–not a hotbed of conservative thought by any stretch. I know other artists here, who have been on the scene far longer than I, who have had far worse treatment at the hands of gallery owners.

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May 12, 2013

Tea Party Patriots Calls for Congress to Investigate IRS ‘Crimes’

Breitbart News has learned that Tea Party Patriots is asking its members to pressure Congress to conduct a full and thorough investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative and Tea Party organizations.

The organization is calling on Congress to conduct “substantive” investigative hearings in the wake of recent reports that senior IRS officials knew in 2011 exactly what was going on, despite initial claims that local “low-level” employees were the only ones involved in targeting conservatives.

Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin said that on Friday “we learned that the IRS lied to Congress and the American citizens when Douglas Schulman said there was ‘absolutely no targeting’ of Tea Party groups who applied for nonprofit status.” Martin was referencing Schulman’s March 2012 Congressional testimony.

Today we are learning that the IRS lied when they said that only “low-level employees” were to blame for outrageous and egregious overreach and abuse of power. The AP is reporting in June 2011, IRS division head Lois Lerner instructed employees to change the criteria for “flagging groups ‘immediately’” and in August 2011 “the IRS” Rulings and Agreements office “held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information.”

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Video: New Coke

When Coca-Cola changed its recipe and rebranded itself as New Coke, the world recoiled in horror. What does New Coke have to do with conservative politics? Who is the classic conservative and who is the new conservative? Does the marketing plan of Pepsi resemble progressivism? Find out what Bill Whittle thinks.

Video linked here at original source.


May 11, 2013

IRS Apologizes for Targeting Tea Party Groups in 2012

On Friday, the IRS apologized for singling out conservative groups, especially organizations that had “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names, for additional reviews during the 2012 election.

According to the Associated Press, Lois Lerner, who “heads the IRS unit that overseas tax-exempt groups,” said such groups were targeted and scrutinized excessively to see if they were in violation of their tax-exempt status.

At a conference in Washington, Lerner “said organizations that included the words ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their applications for tax-exempt status” were targeted by IRS workers in Cincinnati and conceded it was wrong.

“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” said Lois Lerner, the chief IRS official in charge of tax-exempt organizations

“That was wrong,” said Lerner. “That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review.”

The IRS harassment of conservative groups was not politically motivated, claims the IRS. Furthermore, Lerner says the practice of targeting conservatives was done without the knowledge of top IRS officials and was the work of lower-level staff in Cincinatti.

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May 10, 2013

Requiem for a Grand Old Party by Pat Buchanan

Obama won only 39 percent of White America, lowest ever of any victorious presidential candidate. But he did not need any more white votes, when he was carrying people of color 4 to 1.

Has the bell begun to toll for the GOP?

The question arises while reading an analysis of Census Bureau statistics on the 2012 election by Dan Balz and Ted Mellnik.

One sentence in their Washington Post story fairly leaps out:

“The total number of white voters actually decreased between 2008 and 2012, the first such drop by any group within the population since the bureau started to issue such statistics.”

America’s white majority, which accounts for nine in 10 of all Republican votes in presidential elections, is not only shrinking as a share of the electorate, but it is declining in numbers, as well.

The Balz-Mellnik piece was primarily about the black vote.

Sixty-six percent of the black electorate turned out, to 64 percent of the white electorate. Black turnout in 2012 was higher by 1.7 million than in 2008. Hispanic turnout rose by 1.4 million votes.

But from 2008 to 2012, the white vote fell by 2 million.

This is the crisis of the Grand Old Party:

Minorities, peoples of color – Hispanic, black, Asian – gave 80 percent of their votes to Obama. And while the minorities’ share of the electorate was 26 percent in 2012, minorities constitute 36.3 percent of the population. And their share of both the electorate and the population is inexorably rising.

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April 30, 2013

Demographics Favor the GOP — Unless They Blow It

One wonders: Can GOP consultants do math?

No one could possibly guess it from the TV talk or coverage by the daily press corps, but the Republican Party stands today at the threshold of historic political victories.

The forces pushing things in this direction are so strong that the permanent campaign of Barack Obama, the public sector unions and the like can’t prevail against them. The liberals this time are on the wrong side of history, and there is little they can do on their own to change the almost certain downfall that awaits them.

However, nothing in politics is absolutely certain, and there is an X factor in the equation that could keep the GOP from a victorious future.

This barrier, ironically, is the party’s own alleged leadership in the Republican National Committee, a swarm of GOP “consultants”, and top echelons of Congress — where the preferred mode of battle appears to be piecemeal surrender.

According to the recent RNC “autopsy” of the 2012 election, and other establishmentarian voices, what Republicans need to do to win is to be more like the Democratic opposition.

This is a siren song we’ve been hearing since the days of Nelson Rockefeller and John Lindsay, much used by opponents of Ronald Reagan. It was wrong then, and is equally wrong today.

In the current version of this tactic, the main issue being stressed is amnesty (by whatever name) for 10 to 20 million illegal aliens, as a supposed way of attracting Hispanic voters.

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April 18, 2013

‘The neo-conservative era is dead’: Ron Paul announces DC think-tank

“The neo-conservative era is dead. The ill-advised policies pushed by the neo-cons have everywhere led to chaos and destruction, and to a hatred of the United States and its people. Multi-trillion dollar wars have not made the world a safer place; they have only bankrupted our economic future. The Ron Paul Institute will provide the tools and the education to chart a new course with the understanding that only through a peaceful foreign policy can we hope for a prosperous tomorrow.”

Ron Paul has been retired from Congress for only a few months, but he’s certainly not shying away from politics. The former US representative has already announced his new project: the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

In a press release sent to the media Friday afternoon, the Ron Paul camp confirms that the long-time Texas representative will launch a think-tank of sorts in order to carry on his ideologies after his time in office has ended.

“After decades in and out of the US House of Representatives leading the call for a non-interventionist foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties, Dr. Paul is launching a revolutionary new vehicle to expand his efforts. The Institute will serve as the focal point of a new coalition that crosses political, ideological and party lines,” the statement begins.

According to the press release, the Ron Paul Institute will focus mainly on two issues: education and coming generations.

“It will fill the growing demand for information on foreign affairs from a non-interventionist perspective through a lively and diverse website, and will provide unique educational opportunities to university students and others,” his office says.

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April 13, 2013

Gov. Rick Perry to Rubio: Stand up and condemn immigration bill and step away from it as far as you can (Audio)

Gov. Rick Perry was on the Laura Ingraham Show and regarding the watered-down immigration bill that doesn’t really secure the border, he suggested that Rubio condemn the immigration proposal by the gang of eight and step away from it as far as he can:

Listen at original source.