Month: January 2016

Gee, Why Would Anyone Think John McCain Didn’t Support Reagan?

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

John McCain is throwing a hissy fit because Ted Cruz had the temerity to suggest that McCain didn’t support Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign. “It’s an outright lie,” McCain fumed to CNN.

Cruz’s actual comments weren’t as inflammatory as —he simply said in a speech, “Do you know if you define as a Reaganite anyone who supported Ronald Reagan in the 1980 primary, do you know that the Republican Party has never once nominated a Reaganite to be president since 1984?”—but okay, McCain was (tragically) among those nominees. McCain says he “worshipped” the Gipper at the time, but was prohibited from public endorsements prior to his 1981 retirement from the Navy.

I’ll take the Arizona senator at his word, but to hyperventilate that this was an “outright lie” or willful dishonesty on Cruz’s part requires one to ignore, well, everything else about McCain’s political career. Continue reading →

Donald Trump: Amnesty Shill

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,

Donald Trump Meets DREAMersOne of the reasons attacks on Donald Trump such as National Review’s recent symposium have been ineffective is because they don’t speak to the factors that could actually change his supporters’ minds. Among Trump fans who read conservative commentary, The Donald’s various political heresies, temperamental deficiencies, and personal failings are already priced into their decision—they aren’t prioritizing a full-spectrum conservative, they just want someone who’ll finally shut the border and get our immigration system under control once and for all, and don’t trust anyone else to do it.

So don’t waste space reiterating what they already know and don’t care about. Instead, focus the bulk of your energy dismantling the only good pro-Trump argument—his perceived strength as an immigration hawk—and publicize the truth that, beyond the tough talk about building walls and deporting rapists, he’s as wobbly and inconsistent on the issue as anyone. Continue reading →

Ann Coulter Has Sold Her Soul to Donald Trump

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

YAF 2009 - Meeting Ann Coulter 1For fifteen years, I was an enthusiastic, unapologetic Ann Coulter fan. I’ve expressed my share of disagreements with her, but on balance have supported and defended her many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, times—from Left and Right alike—as one of the most fearless and principled assets to the conservative movement. Her books were defining influences on my own political development. She regularly raised devastating, critical points that more than a few conservatives were too meek to say or too conventional to notice. Meeting her in 2009 (above) was one of the biggest thrills of my political career, and I counted my autographed copy of Slander as one of my most prized possessions.

So when I say that Ann Coulter has officially lost me, know that I didn’t reach this conclusion lightly.

For the better part of 2015, Coulter’s aggressive support for Donald Trump has been a source of major consternation on the Right. Contrary to what some demagogic charlatans would have you believe, her underlying rationale is entirely correct: the next president’s level of conservatism on other issues will be irrelevant if he allows mass immigration and amnesty to give the Democrats enough new voters to guarantee them a permanent national majority. If this were, say, a two-man race between him and Marco Rubio, it would be perfectly reasonable to conclude that Trump is more likely to do the right thing on the issue.

Where Coulter’s conclusion breaks down is that Trump isn’t the candidate with the most credibility on fighting amnesty—Ted Cruz is. Conservatives don’t have to make a last-resort choice between an immigration hawk and a conservative; we can get both. Continue reading →

New at Live Action: TX Abortion CEO Fear-Mongers at TIME

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

As pro-lifers mark the 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade with mourning for its victims and resolve to set things right, abortion advocates are commemorating it with a mix of ghoulish celebration and fear-mongering over the possibility of Roe falling. In Time Magazine, Whole Women’s Health CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller and reproductive historian Rickie Solinger write a commemoration that leans heavily toward the latter, inadvertently demonstrating why overturning this monstrous ruling is so vital.

Today, where a woman lives determines her access to abortion services, and states mandate whether she is required to have (and look at) an ultrasound beforehand, whether she must obtain parental consent, whether has the right to have a medical abortion, among other conditions. Wherever she lives, she has to assess the political and economic environment into which her child would be born, as she decides whether to continue her pregnancy.

If the Roe court had addressed all the additional factors Miller and Solinger wish they had, their ruling would have even less to do with the Constitution’s actual meaning than the already-bankrupt decision they gave us.

Read the rest at Live Action News.

New at Live Action: Jezebel’s Self-Defeating Attack on Abortion-Slavery Comparison

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

It’s been a while since we’ve given Jezebel, home of some of the internet’s most unhinged pro-abortion partisans, more than passing references, which is a shame considering that the site was once a near-constant font of unintentional humor and accidental self-discrediting.

But fear not, readers, for Jezebel’s Joanna Rothkopf brings us an attack on pro-life Virginia Delegate Rick Morris for making an impassioned case that abortion is today’s slavery, in which the only wounds that connect are self-inflicted.

Read the rest at Live Action News.

New at Live Action: Why Aren’t WI GOP Leaders Fighting for Fetal Tissue Bill?

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Disturbing news is coming out of Wisconsin, where Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is trying to lower pro-lifers’ expectations for a vote on AB 305, which would ban medical research from using fetal organs obtained from abortions:

Every time people say ‘I think that I have the votes,’ they don’t,” Vos said. “My job is to count votes for a living […] My job is to talk to lawmakers and to try to craft a compromise that can work in the long run that we can also make sure we explain to the public and do the right thing […]

There were many who said, look, let’s try to craft a bill that can address the issue but not go so much further. And some of those on the pro-life side have said they don’t want to compromise at all; they’d rather ban the research. I just fundamentally have an issue with that, which is why we’ve had that discussion in caucus and we haven’t found a consensus.

Vos has been dragging his feet on the legislation for months (GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says he has reservations, too, while Governor Scott Walker is largely keeping quiet on the issue). In September, Wisconsin Family Action President Julaine Appling said it was “very disturbing that the Speaker can’t find 50 votes out of 63 fellow Assembly Republicans all almost all of whom at least claim to be pro-life,” and the Milwaukee pro-life ads we reported on earlier this month were meant in part to pressure him to change his tune.

Read the rest at Live Action News.

Laurence Tribe, Trump’s Eligibility Expert, Is a Liar

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

For many of us, the highlight of the latest Republican debate was Ted Cruz demolishing Donald Trump’s attack on his status as a natural-born citizen eligible for the presidency. For added insult to injury, Cruz pointed out the following about the constitutional “expert” Trump has repeatedly cited on the matter:

Let me tell you who Larry Tribe is. He’s a left-wing judicial activist, Harvard Law professor who was Al Gore’s lawyer in Bush versus Gore. He’s a major Hillary Clinton supporter. And there’s a reason why Hillary’s supporters are echoing Donald’s attacks on me, because Hillary wants to face Donald Trump in the general election.

This was devastating not merely for discrediting the legal question, which was never going to be a serious problem, but for demonstrating that Trump is getting his information from liberals and has no idea what an actual conservative would consider a credible authority. Indeed, Tribe prefaces his analysis of the case with an ode to “living Constitution” judges who “believ[e] that the Constitution’s meaning evolves with the perceived needs of the time and longstanding practice”—which anyone who came to conservatism naturally would instantly recognize as code for twisting the Constitution to justify whatever liberals want.

But it turns out there’s another reason why The Donald choose poorly: his expert is not just mistaken, but lying. Continue reading →

Republicans Can’t Do Anything Right: Sean Duffy Edition

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Donald Trump’s authenticity on issues such as ending abortion may be highly questionable, but there’s still a stylistic lesson more conventional Republicans desperately need to learn from him: people are sick of timidity in response to outrageous policies and malicious smears.

Case in point: on Friday, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) said the following:

I hear a lot in this institution from minority leaders about how their communities are targeted, but what I don’t hear them talk about is how their communities are targeted in abortion […] My liberal friends, Congressional Black Caucus members, talk about fighting for the defenseless, the hopeless, and the downtrodden […] There is no one more hopeless and voiceless than an unborn baby, but their silence is deafening. I can’t hear them. Where are they standing up for their communities, advocating and fighting for their right to life?

So far, so good. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) reacted with the usual hysteria:

After nearly 30 years in public office, not much surprises me anymore. So you can imagine my lack of astonishment when my dear friend and colleague from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy, rolled out abortion statistics among African-American women to lecture black legislators like me about defending the welfare of our constituents […] I don’t expect Rep. Duffy to understand why his comments are offensive […] What he and so many of his Republican colleagues fail to acknowledge is the underlying context behind high abortion rates in African-American communities. High rates of abortion are related to poverty and lack of access to quality care […] Rep. Duffy’s hypocrisy on this issue is as predictable as it is offensive. If he truly, truly wants to fight for the hopeless and voiceless, he should join us.

At which point Duffy falls apart. Moore’s attack is equal parts dishonest and malicious, purely an attempt to distract from his critique by changing the subject. This should have been met with doubling down on the original charge against her and her colleagues, with a healthy dose of shame added in.

Instead, he felt the need to appease his attacker. Continue reading →

New at Live Action: Christie Lied About Backing Sotomayor at GOP Debate

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

There was no significant discussion of abortion at Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, except for a brief mention by Ted Cruz of New York being a relatively pro-abortion place (a crazy idea he must have gotten from Americans United for Life’s ranking of New York among the ten most pro-abortion states, or NY Governor Andrew Cuomo outright saying pro-lifers “have no place in the state of New York”), and Marco Rubio criticizing funding of Planned Parenthood.

In a brief segment, Rubio criticized Obama for making Planned Parenthood funding a priority instead of the military. In another, he accusing Chris Christie of having donated to Planned Parenthood and of having supported pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The ensuing argument between Cruz and Donald Trump on New York didn’t touch on abortion again, but sparks flew on the latter incident…

RUBIO: Unfortunately, Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, whether it is Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood. Our next president, and our Republican nominee can not be someone who supports those positions.

Read the rest at Live Action News.

Nikki Haley’s SOTU Response Was Even Worse Than You’ve Heard

Calvin Freiburger Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Haley’s leadership-approved Republican response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address has rightly been eviscerated for devoting so much time to attacking a leading Republican candidate rather than the Democrat president she was there to refute, and for condescending to the party’s base that they need to lighten up about their entirely-valid, perpetually-neglected immigration concerns.

Mark Steyn’s takedown of those offenses (as well as her general vagueness on the good positions she did espouse) says it all:

Unfortunately for her, this sentimentalist twaddle is not where the Republican base is. She’s looking at immigration policy from the point of view of the seven billion hard-working soon-to-be-vetted Americans-in-waiting around the planet. But one of the changes this election season is that the party base is considering immigration policy from the point of view of the 300 million Americans who are already here […]

Trump is a monster of the GOP elite’s creation. And their solution to it is to use what’s meant to be a rebuttal to the President as a rebuttal to their own leading candidates and the two-thirds of their voters who support them. Truly this is the dumbest political party on the planet.

So here I’ll focus on a few more than have gone relatively unnoticed amid the uproar, but are also highly indicative of the leadership rot within the GOP. Continue reading →