No one but the worst sycophant thinks that President Obama’s latest stab at a federal budget is a serious plan. In fact, that he’s come before the American people again with a second budget plan itself bespeaks of a president badly floundering on the issue. This has left the Republican Party, and more specifically the GOP led House of Representatives, as the only real game in town on the budget, the debt, and in correcting the Bacchanalia of spending that Congress has indulged for nigh on the last 100 years.

Sadly the Old Media has let Obama skate on the fact that this is his second stab at a budget. If this had been a Republican president forced to throw away his first budget plan, forced to offer a second one, the Old Media would be proclaiming him a president in trouble, a failed leader, a man without influence. Obama, however, has been given a complete pass on his total failure to lead and convince.

Regardless, the GOP has proven to be the adults in the room here with its public face of Paul Ryan and his “path to prosperity” budget plan. As flawed as it might be it is the only serious plan on the table at this time.

I recently spoke to GOP Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R, IL) about the House plan.

In fact, Roskam mentioned how the media has given Obama a pass on his failure to lead on the budget.

[Obama's] first go around just got laughed off by the public stage by -– of all entities, the New York Times editorial page and the Washington Post and the Journal and the Tribune. And it was rejected as not serious, not leadership, and basically just phoning it in. And by contrast, the House Republicans produced a plan that makes sense, brings customers to the market, and ultimately creates an environment for the American entrepreneurial spirit that has made the country great. You can hardly imagine a starker contrast.

One of the left’s complaints, I told the congressman, is that the Ryan plan was pushed through with no debate. It is interesting that they’d complain about this seeing as how everything they did under Nancy Pelosi was done with no debate. Regardless, in this case, the charge is not really true. Roskam reports that House leadership has been having “small group discussions with members of Congress that have been highly interactive” where members are being asked their concerns. Further there’s still a lot of time for debate as the budget is not a “done deal” in as much as it has not had any final vote.

The GOP is ready to cut even more than they already have, too. Roskam said, “there’s such a strong Republican vote coming out last week and it was this very unified voice where everybody was saying, ‘Look, let’s turn the page and instead of us cutting billions, now let’s talk about cutting trillions.’”

In other words, this plan is still being formed, it is not passed “without debate” and is not yet a done deal. Roskam also says that the American people are in the lead, here.

As you know this morning, S&P made their announcement of the debt forecasting, the urgency of this can’t be overstated. We’re actually operating on the assumption that the public is ahead of the political class on this and the public knows that something is going on. In the end that there’s now open conversations about the US dollar not being the reserve currency or when the American President goes to the G-20 Summit and he’s not the dominant figure anymore… this is all very troublesome and the people know it. They know something is going on and they’re looking for a remedy.

This is in sharp contrast to the fecklessness that President Obama is showing on the budget, says Roskam. The congressman says that Obama is only, “refashioning an old failed argument that is in the pretense of that discussion is really a prelude to raising taxes.”

In fact, if you raise taxes, you’re going to be eating your prosperity. And the irony is that the Ryan plan completely eclipses that whole argument. Obama’s fixated on whether the ’01 and the ’03 tax cuts should be made permanent. And what we’re saying is, let’s lower the rates for every one -– lower the corporate rate, lower the individual rate, clean up the exemptions and loopholes to broaden the base and create that environment where global capital comes into the US. It’s a very different path where I think it’s a choice that ultimately the country is going to make.

Another one of the Democrat’s charges is that the Ryan plan lowers taxes on “the rich.” I asked Roskam what his response was to that charge.

Roskam said that there really isn’t any lowering of the tax rate because they are getting rid of a bunch of loopholes and exemptions so they feel that “the rich” won’t be getting any reduction in tax rates with the Ryan plan.

But it is Congressional spending that Roskam was chiefly concerned about.

If we don’t deal with the spending side of things then what’s going to happen is there will be a debt crisis and the liberals will then lower a big VAT tax on the top of the economy and basically smother it. Not unlike what we saw happen in Illinois. Not with a VAT but just with all this pressure of raised taxes. I’ve come to the conclusion that either we manage the debt or the debt manages us. And I say, let’s manage it. We know the consequences of our action and I’m convinced that the public is actually ahead of the political class, that the public wants to have a clear pathway. They want to have a choice. They want to be talked to straight.

Roskam laments that the Democrats are so unserious about cutting spending.

Remember when Senator John Cornyn came a couple of months ago and said, “The most we can cut is billion dollars”? He added after that some draconian prediction about what would happen if you cut more than 10 billion. You would have thought that the sky was going to fall based on his predictions. But the House moved forward and passed the biggest cut in American history and, Warner, the sun came up the next day.

The public is not into hyperbole. They don’t want to hear people over arguing small points. They want to hear fair, clear, accurate descriptions that are based on experience and common sense. And they want choices to be made based on that experience. They know in their own lives that you can’t borrow money without a repayment plan and the same thing is true here.

Even at a foreign policy level, the increased vulnerability to continue to borrow from foreign interests is wrong. As you know, 47% of our national debt is held by foreign interests whereas back in 1970, that was only 5%. The vulnerability that this creates is foolishness. To say that there’s not going to be a foreign policy consequence to this… this is where Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said when asked biggest national security threat, “Without question, it’s our debt.”

Roskam dismissed many conservative’s concerns that the House has failed to seriously cut the budget or that they are not serious about continuing to do so moving forward.

I think it’s important to recognize two things. Number one, the House Republicans control one half of one third of the government. So, the public in 2010 entrusted the House to the GOP but they kept the Senate in the Democrats’ hands. And obviously didn’t have a chance to weigh in on the presidency so, we’re dealing with the consequences of the election. Within that context, we did the largest cut in American history and have moved the President from spending, through freezing, to cutting and he’s doing that while he’s grinding his teeth. He doesn’t like it. But he signed the bill into law, the largest cut in American history.

Now if we cut per the Ryan plan, it’s six trillion over the next ten years, we can be doing this if we get the support. It’s super important to understand the trend line, here. This is ultimately about confidence. I think if we were to enact the House Republican budget, I don’t think that we would see the same kind of tremors within the financial markets that we saw this morning. I think it would be a much more confident pathway and people would say there’s a plan, it’s articulated, we’ve decided on it, we’re moving forward on it, and I think that that brings an expectation as opposed to what we have right now and that is an executive branch that’s doing little to lead and assure us of our fiscal stability.

Finally, Roskam was pleased to see the “high level of conversation and interaction” between Ryan, the House leadership, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, Fred Upton head of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Doc Hastings Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

In the past, you’ve rarely seen this sort cooperation between committee chairmen. And you now see a highly functional process behind the scenes that’s happening, that’s coordinated, and thoughtful where the Budget Committee Chairman and the Ways and Means Committee Chairman are in tandem. It’s hard to overstate how important this is to ultimately moving a good comprehensive package through the House.

Naturally Roskam is enthused about the Ryan budget, though. After all he’s part of the GOP leadership team. As the GOP’s go-to budget guy in leadership he’s certain to be one of its biggest cheerleaders. So, to get another perspective I turned to Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum.

Holtz-Eakin is the former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and was the chief economic policy adviser to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign

“I am by and large supportive of the Ryan Plan,” Holtz-Eakin told me. “The debt explosion is the top problem facing our country. The Ryan plan represents leadership and it seems like a meritorious effort. It also takes on the entitlements and reforms their structure. We may get slower deficit reduction, but that seems worth it.”

I asked him what he thought might be missing in the Ryan plan. “Maybe we could get Medicare reforms faster,” he said. “More Social Security reforms are needed, too. I think there’s every reason to believe that Social Security is the easiest thing to reform now. There’s no near term impacts and its not politically impossible.”

“The fundamental disagreement I have with critics is that doing nothing is NOT an option. The critics don’t seem to have a plan at all,” he said ruefully.

Obama’s plan is a disgrace. There’s NO plan there. His plan consists of appointing another unnecessary commission and having across the board cuts except on Medicare, Obamacare or anything else that is actually the problem. He’s in full campaign mode, but in terms of substantive leadership on the debate he’s missing in action.

“The tipoff,” Holtz-Eakin told me, “is that he chose an over the next 12 years point as his standard. Obviously he could not go head-to-head with Ryan’s ten-year plan.”

Holtz-Eakin was also shocked at how personal Obama’s attack on Representative Paul Ryan has been. It is a clear lack of leadership that Obama has made this a personal attack on a single member of Congress Holtz-Eakin insisted. The fact that Obama actually invited Ryan to the speech then, without ever looking him in the eye, the president attacked Ryan in personal terms — with attacks getting even more personal with his supporters after the speech — was “incredible” as far as Holtz-Eakin is concerned.

In all, Doug Holtz-Eakin was generally supportive of the Ryan Path to Prosperity. Warts and all it is the only serious plan on the table he told me. The fact is, until the Democrats bother to come to the table with an actual plan, there really is only one plan: Paul Ryan’s. And since we went all of 2010 without budget passed – yes, even with the Democrats then in full control — it doesn’t seem likely that the Democrats will be offering a serious plan any time soon.

Roskam’s office produced a pair of videos to explain their position of the Ryan plan and has more info on Roskam’s website

A Tidal Wave of Debt – Part One

A Path to Prosperity – Part Two

The American Conservative Union (ACU) is the entity that runs the biggest annual conservative event, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Next year CPAC will be headed by a new face, Al Cardenas. Now former Chairman David Keene turns over the reigns to Cardenas after the 2011 CPAC event.

Cardenas has a compelling story, indeed. He was born in Havana, Cuba in 1948 and came to America in 1960 when his parents fled Castro’s communist takeover. Cardenas has been heavily involved in the Florida State GOP and he worked for Ronald Reagan’s campaigns in Florida starting in 1975.

I had an opportunity to interview Mr. Cardenas about his new role with the ACU and this naturally led to questions of the current controversies going on at CPAC. I focused on the Ron Paul fans that caused so much ruckus this year and Cardenas seemed to put the Paulites on notice that they may not be invited again.

At about 5 minutes into our interview I asked Cardenas about the disruptions that occurred specifically during the appearances of Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Cardenas replied that, “those who decide to consciously breach [civility] maybe shouldn’t be part of CPAC and we’ll keep that in mind for the future.”

It sure seems as if Cardenas just put the Paulites on notice that they may not be invited next year.

Where ever Herman Cain goes he meets enthusiastic crowds. There is a reason for that: He is an incredibly dynamic man. He has a compelling life story and boy can he whip up a crowd! Every time I’ve seen him he has the folks on their feet in wild applause. And Cain revels in the attention giving the crowd a wide smile with every speech.

The Interview With Herman Cain

His resume is quite impressive, of course. After all, he was the man that was assigned stewardship of the troubled Godfather Pizza chain when he worked for Pillsbury Foods and turned it around into a money-maker when no one expected him to be able to do so. It became so successful that he was able to buy the chain and run it himself.

But it isn’t just his past business experience that shows what a can-do man he is. He also beat cancer. It took him four years, but he did it. He’s cancer free and in the fit of health. And now he is a talk radio host out of Atlanta’s WSB AM 750. He has also formed the Herminator Pac and is “prayerfully” exploring the possibility of running for president in 2012.

The thing that strikes you about talking with Herman Cain is the fact that he is amazingly straight-forward for an aspiring politician. He isn’t shy about telling you exactly what he thinks and exactly what is going side ways in America today. But he is also a 100% supporter of the idea of American exceptionalism.

Cain also knows how to turn a phrase. His bumblebee line is a killer. With that he compares the fact that scientists claim that the bumblebee’s ability to fly is technically impossible yet he flies because he believes he can. He compares that self-assured bumblebee with America’s belief in itself. A truly inspired analogy.

I had a chance to sit down with Mr. Cain when I attended American for Prosperity’s RightOnLine conference in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 24th. (And I apologize for not getting this up yesterday, but I was having tech troubles.)

To keep up with Herman Cain:

On Twitter: THEHermanCain
On Facebook: www.facebook.com/THEHermanCain
Website: www.hermancain.com
HerminatorPac.org

On the day after his historic primary win, National Public Radio rabidly went after Rand Paul, newly minted GOP nominee for Kentucky Senator, trying to make him out to be a KKK sympathizer or perhaps a racist that would have agreed to keep Jim Crow alive and well in 1964. This rabid, left-wing attack is uncalled for and, further, is meant only to stir anti-Republican hatred and not to help voters discover anything relevant about nominee Rand Paul.

Nearly at the top of the interview the host of NPR’s All Things Considered tried to paint Mr. Paul as some sort of hater that would have opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Catch this loaded and irrelevant question by NPR:

You’ve said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone and that the Americans for Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an over reach by the federal government, would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Paul gave a very good reply but the best thing he said was that he hadn’t read through the entire 1964 legislation because it had been passed 40 years ago and didn’t have any role in today’s campaign. And that is just it, isn’t it? The 1964 Civil Rights Act is ancient history as far as current politics goes. It is fully accepted and is not a law in dispute, nor does it have any part in current political discussion. The law is fact, the legitimacy of which no one questions. Talking about the 1964 Civil Rights Act is not relevant at all to today’s issues.

Of course, that wasn’t good enough for NPR as the hack that was interviewing Paul harped on and on trying to get Paul to say he wished that blacks in America were still forced to live under Jim Crow. In fact, the NPR interviewer wasted most of the interview trying to out Paul as a racist.

One wonders what NPR was next going to ask Rand Paul about if they hadn’t run out of time? Would NPR had tried to get Paul to say that he disagreed with entering WWII? Maybe NPR would have next grilled Paul on his thoughts of Abraham’s decision to sacrifice his son Isaac to God? Aren’t all of these heady issues as important to the Kentucky Senate campaign as revisiting a 40-year-old piece of legislation that no one is considering repealing, altering, or revisiting?

Of course, we know why NPR did this. NPR is desperately trying to destroy Rand Paul before the next phase of his campaign is fairly off the ground.

The fact is that rehashing 40-year-old legislation that is not up for review or even in question is a pointless discussion. After all, is Paul — or any other American politician, for that matter — running a campaign saying that the 1964 Civil Rights Act should be repealed? Have any said it was the wrong decision? The discussion is pointless… unless you can use it to destroy a Republican, right NPR?

Transcript of 1964 Civil Rights Discussion

NPR: You’ve said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone and that the Americans for Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an over reach by the federal government, would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Rand Paul: What I’ve always said is that I’m opposed to institutional racism and I would have, had I been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism. I see no place in our society for institutional racism.

NPR: But are you saying had you been around at the time you would have hoped you would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater against the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

Paul: Well actually I think it’s confusing on a lot of cases with what actually was in the civil rights case because see a lot of the things that were actually in the bill I’m in favor of. I’m in favor of everything with regards to ending institutional racism. So, I think there’s a lot to be desired in the civil rights. And to tell you the truth I haven’t really read all through it because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn’t really been a pressing issue in the campaign on what…

NPR: But…

Paul: …for the civil rights act.

NPR: But it’s been one of the major developments of American history in the course of your life, I mean, do you think the ‘64 Civil Rights Act or the ADA for that matter, were just over reaches? And that business shouldn’t be bothered by people with basis in law to sue them for, for redress?

Paul: Right, I think a lot of things can be handled locally. For example I think that we should try to do everything that we can to allow for people with disabilities and handicaps, you know we do it in our office with wheel chair ramps and things like that. I think if you have a two story office and you hire someone who’s handicapped it might be reasonable to let them have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a hundred thousand dollar elevator. And I think when you get to solutions like that the more local the better and the more common sense the decisions are rather than having a federal government make those decisions.

Pajamas Media is capitalizing on its earlier coverage of the Tea Party movement and has launched Tea Party TV. As the PR release says, “Expanding on its coverage of the National Tea Party Convention last week, PJTV announced its launch of Tea Party TV, offering comprehensive coverage of the Tea Party movement. The cornerstone of the Tea Party TV coverage will be a twice-a-week Internet TV show hosted by Glenn Reynolds and AlfonZo Rachel, well-known commentators on PJTV. ” Since the original PR release, they’ve also added Dana Loesch to Reynolds and Rachel. It’s “the best way to stay informed about the Tea Party movement,” they claim.

So, what is it all, anyway? To answer that I chatted with Glenn Reynolds and we talked about all things Tea Party. Coming down from the stomach flu as he was, we still had a lively talk.

I asked Glenn what sort of future he saw for the tea parties and he said that he was an early booster of the movement even when folks like Roger Simon thought it was all a flash in the pan and would go nowhere. “I think it is the most genuine outbreak of popular grassroots political activism in my lifetime,” Reynolds said, “and so that’s a pretty big deal and I think it’s coming to a crucial time for the country as well.”

Reynolds told me that PJTV wanted to cover the Tea Party movement because the Old Media was doing its best to ignore the whole thing. He praised PJTV as being one of the few to “put eyes on what is the biggest thing politically that’s been going on” in the nation.

One of my worries about the Tea Party movement is that it just might suffer from being too widely diffused. I asked Glenn if he thought it might suffer from not having a few central figures that can be focused upon.

Reynolds:The thing I’ve learned from the internet is that you can accomplish a huge amount with searches of popular entries and you can get more from the Internet in a period of a few weeks to a few months with people who just sort of drop whatever they’re doing and get involved, than you can do in years or decades of professional organization, but I’ve also learned if you want somebody to stick on something and keep plugging, it helps to have somebody who’s paid to deliver it. And that obviously is something you aren’t going to have in a grassroots organization very much.

Keeping with the question of long-term effectiveness, I asked Reynolds how long he felt the movement would remain potent?

Reynolds: I think that it’s going to last through the next election and probably through the election after and what’s going to happen after that is, you know, a lot of the grassroots enthusiasm will fade but it’s going [to] fade and some people [will] just find something else to do which may be political or not. And on the other side of it, it’s going – people are going to leave the Tea Party movement and they’re going to run for office themselves, become cabinets themselves, become precinct chairman or county chairman or members of the state or national party committees and things like that. And you know, that’s what normally happens with grassroots movement if they’re successful, which is, that they become part of the mainstream.

But what of the supposed extremists in the Tea Party movement, I asked. Won’t that just introduce the wackos, as the left and the Old Media claims?

Reynolds: The New Left took the Democrats further away from the mainstream of the American public, its true. But I think the Tea Party is moving the Republicans more in line with the mainstream to the American Public, so it’s more likely to have productive effects.

There is no political movement that doesn’t [have] fringes, but compared to the new Black Panther Party which is getting kissy face from Eric Holder, compared with Bill Ayers, compared with Bernadine Dohrn, compared with Van Jones these are people at the core of the administration Democratic party today, the Tea Party has got no fringe at all.

I pointed out that the Old Media focuses on what they portray as the Tea Party extremists, but it ignores all the extremists always in attendance at the left’s protests. There are actual communists, anarchists, radical abortionists, even animal rights and enviro terrorists but you never see these whack-jobs in the news.

Reynolds: Well, when we had the anti-war protest in 2003, 2004 with the almost sole exception of David Korn at the nation, nobody was willing to point out that those movements were organized by people who are literally, not pejoratively, literally communists. David Korn was we talked about Answer and the Workers World Party and the people who are providing the organizational infrastructure for those big marches on Washington and he wrote about in the nation and in L.A. weekly but places like Washington Post and the New York Times pretended that these are just ordinary mom-and-pop types of middle America coming down. When they don’t give that kind of a treatment to the Tea Party, but that is because they are fundamentally dishonest in their reporting.

I brought up another one of my worries for the candidates that try to rely on Tea Party groups and that is money. The sad fact is that politics means spending money. I asked Glenn if he thought that the Tea Party groups could raise the money necessary to help a candidate they are supporting win an election?

Reynolds: There are three angles to the money front. Angle number one is that in many ways Tea Party activism is the substitute for cash, that is to say, you don’t have to pay people to go out and do yourself because Tea Party people will do it for free.

I read over 6000 people traveled in from out of state to work as volunteers for Scott Brown and you know, and so that’s as good as money and indeed a lot of the publicity, a lot of the support of the Tea Party people produce is far more valuable than paid political ads.

The second thing is that yes, they do raise money as you’ve seen, for example, in the Scott Brown money bombs and for that matter with some of the other fundraising efforts.

The third part is that the real impact of the Tea Party rule on money has in some sense been a dog who didn’t bark which is say since 2005, 2006 Republicans have had a hard time raising money from the grassroots. And those are, I think, the same Tea Party people who decided to quit giving to the Republican Party when they felt it wasn’t living up to it’s principles.

My next question was about candidates claiming to be “the Tea Party candidate.” I think it is a mistake for a candidate to claim this mantle because there are so many groups, no national organization, and therefore it is a bit disingenuous for a candidate to say “I am the Tea Party candidate.” Plus it seems that this could actually work cross-ways and make Tea Party groups mad at the candidate that makes the claim without really having the solid support to back it up.

Reynolds: Well, the problem with that is there is no Tea Party to give you the nomination. The Tea Party is a movement it’s not party. If you support Tea Party principles and Tea Party people back here, then you are [a] Tea Party candidate but you can’t become one by calling yourself one and I suspect people [are] really pretty good at spotting the phony.

Well, it was a very good interview and I was glad Mr. Reynolds took the time with me. I asked him if he had anything to close with about PJTV Tea Party TV and here is what he said…

Reynolds: I think the Tea Party is going to be fun. Dana Loesch has come on board to Spearhead and she’s terrific for a number of reasons, one is she’s just terrific. She’s a really smart, savvy person. She’s very good on radio and TV, and you know does a fair amount of it. I mean she was one of the real movers and shakers in the St. Louis Tea Party movement which is one of the more successful Tea Party movements around the country. So she’s really a great person to have involved and the goal is going to be to really get out there and put the spotlight on people who are actually doing stuff. You know, the stars of Tea Party TV will be the Tea Party activists who are out there doing things and that’s something I’ve done to some degree to my own show on PJTV and will continue to do. But Tea Party TV is just a way of throwing more focus on that and more organized in the same way.

So, once again, thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the time. Please do check out Tea Party TV, folks.

[edited]

Fortunately, there is an alternative. Tom Mullins is also running as a Republican to represent New Mexico, and unlike Adam Kokesh, he’s the real deal: a Reagan Republican who certainly has never paraded around in a Marine Corps uniform holding an upside-down American flag, defacing public property, or staging “die-ins” in Washington D.C. the way his opponent has.

I had the chance yesterday to speak with Tom about Adam Kokesh, as well as ask him a few questions about where he stands on the issues.

Cassy Fiano: What are your thoughts on Adam Kokesh’s anti-military activities?

Tom Mullins: I disagree with Adam’s positions regarding our military. I support Guantanamo Bay being open. We are not occupiers. Adam’s activities offend the many veterans, including my father, that I have met. We are not the world’s policeman. We have a volunteer military. Our military men and women deserve support from our elected officials and all members of the American public. I don’t understand how Adam’s actions are “Constitutional”. Adam is nothing more than an Internet Celebrity and a War Protester. I don’t believe New Mexicans agree with his views or his methods to share or voice them.

CF: What would you say the primary difference between yourself and Adam is?

TM: My faith, knowledge, experience, good listening skills, and my good judgment. My faith grounds me and I will stand for innocent life. My knowledge of the energy industry the most important industry in New Mexico is a big difference as well. My life experience growing up as a military brat, traveling around the country, putting myself through college working multiple jobs, building my business from scratch with hard work, perseverance, and luck, being a father of two wonderful girls and raising them, and serving my community. I have been paying my taxes, creating jobs and wealth, which allows our government to function. I don’t think Adam’s even held a job since leaving the Marine Corps.

My good judgment sets me apart. As an engineer, I solve problems. We have problems in Washington that need an Engineer’s skill set. I have the character, the competence, and the compassionate record of making good decisions. I think we are all defined by who we associate ourselves with. I am proud of my actions and my decisions. That includes who I have associated myself with. I don’t know if my opponent’s associates give confidence to the voting public. I ask that New Mexico voters get to know their candidates, their prior words and actions, as well as their associations. I am a grass roots candidate with my grassroots support from right here in New Mexico. I have not been anointed by the political elite. The short answer is that I am qualified to serve as a Congressman, and I don’t think Adam is qualified. He’s a great public speaker, I’ll give you that. So if you’re looking for an unqualified guy who looks pretty and can speak well, then Adam’s your guy.

CF: Do you feel that Adam is an electable candidate?

TM: No.

CF: What made you decide to run for office?

TM: I have never run for nor held public office. I have watched silently as our country is being destroyed. I became more active in the past few years… but became frustrated. When asked what I could do, I decided the most important thing I could do would be to take away the job of the person making these decisions and responsible for holding the executive branch accountable. This is personal. My children’s future and our nation’s future is at stake. I’ve already served as a Tea Party organizer, and now is the time for me to serve our country and New Mexico as its next Congressman.

CF: What would you say the most important issue facing the country today is?

TM: Jobs, economy, and energy. We need private sector jobs and affordable energy to fuel these jobs and our economy. Ben Ray Lujan, Jr. is living in a false utopia, and is out of touch with the citizens of New Mexico. I plan to reduce the size and role of the Federal Government to allow private sector companies to create private sector jobs. That is the solution. Allow for energy development which will allow for private sector manufacturing, which will create meaningful direct jobs and all the associated service industry jobs.

CF: If you were in office, would you have voted for the stimulus package?
TM: No to the stimulus and no to government bailouts.

CF: Would you vote for the health care bill?
TM: No.

CF: Do you approve or disapprove of the abortion funding in the bill?
TM: I disapprove of abortion funding. The government should not pay to murder innocent life. I will stand for innocent life at every opportunity.

CF: What is your position on energy? Would you support offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR?
TM: We need affordable energy. Yes, drill offshore and drill in ANWR (Sec 1002). Being a petroleum engineer and having constructed my own passive solar home. I understand energy. I support Nuclear, Solar, Wind, Natural Gas, Oil, & Coal. Nuclear energy due to its energy density will be our nation’s saving grace in the future. Natural gas is the fuel of now. It should be promoted. Rep. Lujan has voted against New Mexico’s important natural gas industry repeatedly.

CF: Would you support repealing DADT?
TM: I believe that our volunteer military must have standards. The commanders and leaders of our men and women in combat need to make this decision, not Congress. There is no right to the job to serve our nation. It is an honor and a blessing. It is a shame that we politicize this issue.

CF: What is your position on gay marriage?
TM: No to gay marriage. Marriage is sacred and is between one man and one woman. I support the Manhattan Declaration.

CF: And finally, why should voters vote for you instead of Adam?
TM: I am qualified to serve as our next Congressman. I will protect the Constitution, stop the out of control spending and bring common sense to Washington. I have no baggage in my past. I have made good decisions and judgments so far in my life. I believe past performance is a good indicator of future performance. I am a solid qualified candidate who can win this seat for the people of New Mexico. This is not about me. I want to serve them and have been blessed to be at this point in my life where I can serve them. Adam has made poor choices in the past and shown that he has bad judgment. When you put someone who makes poor choices and has bad judgment into office, I think you’ll find that the results will be at best chaotic.

CF: Tom, thanks for taking the time to talk with me.
TM: Thank you!

After speaking with Tom, I feel like the choice is obvious. The Roniacs have come out in full force for Kokesh listing all of his so-called “conservative” credentials, but what about his past? What about his anti-military and anti-American activities? What about his associations with Marxist, liberal, and communist groups? Even if he did somehow change his mind and see the light, so to speak, does that mean that we should just ignore all of that? The problems with Kokesh are problems that any rational American can’t just ignore. Tom Mullins is just as conservative, and frankly, seems much more genuine to me than Adam Kokesh. And unlike Adam, Tom Mullins doesn’t have a history of anti-American and anti-military activities in his background.

Help Tom Mullins defeat Adam Kokesh in the primary. Get the word out, and donate to his campaign. We need real representatives who love this country, not a false prophet claiming to fight for the Constitution.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

Neil Cavuto of Fox News had a visit with former Vice President Dan Qualyle on Jan 13. Ostensibly the interview was about the earthquake in Haiti and the efforts that Quayle was saying needed to be made for the victims there, but Cavuto also asked the former veep about his feelings about the Tea Party movement. Quayle’s reply was revealing in that he proved that he really didn’t know how to think about the Tea Partiers. I think that Quayle is in exactly the same confused state that most of the old guard GOP is. They just don’t get it.

Cavuto asked what Quayle thought of the Tea Party movement and what it portended for the Republican Party and Quayle’s reply was that the GOP had to “co-opt” the Tea Partiers back into the GOP.

Sorry, Dan old pal, but that is wrong, wrong, wrong. The GOP had better understand that it is the Tea Partiers that have the upper hand here and the party also better understand that THEY must be the ones to become “co-opted.” It ain’t the other way ’round, Danny!

Transcript:

N.Cavuto: What do you think of that whole Tea Party stuff… are you worried about that, that it divides conservative votes, what?

D.Quayle: It is somewhat of a traditional American populist movement. Populism has always been part of American politics.

N.C.: But is it a potent third party?

D.Q.: Well that’s an important question. I don’t know yet. We’ll find out beginning in 2010 and probably more so in 2012. But here’s the challenge of my Party, is basically to co-opt the populist movement, the so-called Tea Party Folks whether they are Republicans or Democrats, because they are low taxes, they are for less regulations, they’re for less government interference, which are many principles of the Republican Party. To be able to get them within the Party with our basic principles rather than having them outside the Party…

N.C.: But when they target like I think they have Mr. Vice President, a dozen of so so-called vulnerable Republicans who do not march to all of these principles, what does that risk? Are you worried about it or is it healthy?

D.Q.: I’m not concerned about it right now because I think that most of them will join the Republican Party because they want to see government smaller, less involved in their lives, and they want less taxes, and they want less regulation, and they are for a strong national defense….

First of all, Mr. Veep, the Tea Party movement is in no way a “traditional” populist movement. All traditional populist movements of the past were more or less one issue movements and few were so grounded in traditional Constitutional theory as are the Tea Parties. Anti-liquor folks were just anti-liquor, silver bug folks were all about setting the monetary standard to silver, women’s suffrage were only about getting women the vote, etc. etc. Few of these populist movements had much interest in a greater array of issues once you got past their one, big issue.

But the Tea Party movement is not merely anti-bailout, or just low taxes, small government, pro-Constitutionalists, or anti-communists. They are all these things and more. It should be pointed out that all of the issues that the Tea Partiers stand for are traditional American concepts, not sudden populist issues that may or may not be grounded in Constitutional theory and American tradition like most other populist movements in the past have been.

Additionally, Quayle speaks about the Republican Party as if it has been about small government, less regulations,and the rest. But it has not. Not since Reagan has the GOP been about those things. This is why the Tea Partiers are saying that they are just as mad at the GOP as they are the Democrat Party.The Tea Party folks do not want to just meekly return to the Republican Party if it continues in the Country Club, big government vein in which it has been operating since 1989.

Quayle may not be “worried” about it now, but he should be. This all seems to me to be the sort of backwards thinking that all the old guard GOPers are blinded by. These guys just don’t get it that the Tea Party goers have the political power here. They don’t understand that their flawed Country Club Republican way of thinking has been rejected by the people. If they want to stay in power, the GOP better come to terms with the ideals and principles as espoused by the nation-wide phenomenon that is the Tea Party movement.

Now, let me here say that I’ve always had a begrudging respect for Dan Quayle. He has always exhibited, for instance, the sort of staunch support of traditional marriage that I appreciate. I also thought he withstood well the leftist assault on him when he was VP. But he is still a member of the old guard and here he reveals that he and his ilk are out of the loop when it comes to what to think about the Tea Party movement.

You can’t “co-opt” us, Mr. Quayle. You will be lucky if WE co-opt YOU!

Here is the full Cavuto segment (Tea Party talk at about seven minutes in):

And so the GOP better get this warning…

(Cross posted at BigGovernment.com)

On a previous episode of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Conservatism, Babe and I interview the delightful Leon Weinstein, Russian immigrant and capitalist booster.

Leon has made a few YouTube videos that are well worth the time to watch as they teach a good lesson on why the socialist/communist direction that Barack Obama is trying to drag this country toward is NOT the right way to go.

Here is a sample video:

Leon has also written a great book called the “Capitalist Guidebook.”

Here is a video introduction to the book: