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Author: Fuzzy Slippers

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Fuzzy Slippers

I am a constitutional conservative, a writer, and an editor.

Follow me on Twitter @fuzislippers

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 27, 2015 30 Comments
I like a lot of what Rand Paul has to say; I'm on board with limited Constitutional government, auditing the Fed, thoughtful deregulation, and major tax reform.  When it comes to foreign policy and America's place in the world, however, I can't think of another Republican with whom I disagree more.  (Except maybe his father.) And I'm not alone.  Rand has been trying to affirm his strength on national security precisely because there are a lot GOP primary voters who do not share his isolationist leanings.  As Kemberlee noted in September of last year, Rand's "I'm neither an isolationist nor an interventionist" may not have appeal . . .  to either side. His rhetoric has changed rather dramatically from last fall, however.  Now he's going so far as to argue that Republican hawks "created" ISIS.  This statement is getting a lot of attention, and for good reason: it's an amazing and strange thing to say.  Watch:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 26, 2015 21 Comments
We've recently seen riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, and there are growing concerns that Cleveland will be the next city to become embroiled in riots.  As we learn about (relatively well-) paid protesters and watch the usual parade of race grievance mongers, one thing has become quite clear:  the left has decided that violent riots are a viable tool for change. According to Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine:
The recent spate of protests against police brutality have changed the way the left thinks about rioting. The old liberal idea, which distinguished between peaceful protests (good) and rioting (bad), has given way to a more radical analysis. “Riots work,” insists George Ciccariello-Maher in Salon. “But despite the obviousness of the point, an entire chorus of media, police, and self-appointed community leaders continue to try to convince us otherwise, hammering into our heads a narrative of a nonviolence that has never worked on its own, based on a mythical understanding of the Civil Rights Movement.” Vox’s German Lopez, while acknowledging the downside of random violence, argues, “Riots can lead to real, substantial change.” In Rolling Stone, Jesse Myerson asserts, “the historical pedigree of property destruction as a tactic of resistance is long and frequently effective.” Darlena Cunha, writing in Time, asks, “Is rioting so wrong?” and proceeds to answer her own question in the negative.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 24, 2015 18 Comments
A couple of interesting polls came out this week that raise some equally interesting questions about conservatism, American values, and American culture and society.  One Gallup poll states that Americans greatly overestimate the percentage of Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
The American public estimates on average that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian, little changed from Americans' 25% estimate in 2011, and only slightly higher than separate 2002 estimates of the gay and lesbian population. These estimates are many times higher than the 3.8% of the adult population who identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in Gallup Daily tracking in the first four months of this year. The stability of these estimates over time contrasts with the major shifts in Americans' attitudes about the morality and legality of gay and lesbian relations in the past two decades. Whereas 38% of Americans said gay and lesbian relations were morally acceptable in 2002, that number has risen to 63% today. And while 35% of Americans favored legalized same-sex marriage in 1999, 60% favor it today.
It might come as a surprise that only 3.8% of the American population identify as LGBT.  It did to me.  We are inundated with news stories and manufactured outrage from the left to such a degree that it really seemed that we were transforming our laws, interpretation of our Constitution, and our religious beliefs for a significant portion of the population.  But no. Not that the tiny percentage makes any real difference in our own beliefs about states' rights, gay "marriage," and the assault on Judeo-Christian values, but the difference between our perception and reality speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the progressive far left. They are so effective at both creating false impressions and pushing their ideology, in fact, that the results are measurable.  According to another Gallup poll, the number of people identifying their social values as liberal matches those who identify their social values as conservative for the first time.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 24, 2015 15 Comments
As the GOP field of candidates gets larger and more ideologically diverse, conservatives work toward a defining message about their brand of conservatism.  The latest incarnation is an apparent rebranding of the "compassionate conservatism" most closely associated with President George W. Bush. Not only is the term itself objectionable in its implication that conservatism is not compassionate, but it is equally objectionable in practice.  From compassionate conservatism we notably got No Child Left Behind and (then and still unfunded) Medicare Part D.  Expanding government and increasing spending to provide, expand, and otherwise "reform" an ever-growing number of federal programs seems to undermine fundamental principles of conservatism. Rather than working to significantly shrink or even eradicate giant social welfare programs, "compassionate" conservatism worked to "reform" them at huge cost to the American tax payer. And therein lies the problem for many conservatives who might agree that a safety net is viable, even necessary, but who draw the line at a welfare state that goes well beyond being a temporary safety net for those in need to a generational morass from which few ever escape. Compassionate conservatism was, in essence, an attempt to apply conservative principles to social engineering goals, a means of reforming the welfare state and "helping the poor" via central planning.  The central planning itself, however, was supposed to be rooted in fiscally conservative principles, but the underlying precept was that big government is the answer . . . no matter the question.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 16, 2015 24 Comments
The Clinton Foundation is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad couple of months.  There were the pay to play accusations from Haiti, the numerous other pay to play "coincidences," the rather cozy relationship with "journalist" donor (and former employee) George Stephanopoulos, reports of $30 million from books and speeches in 16 months, and even the email controversy is being linked to the Foundation as part of "one big, hairy deal." It doesn't end there.  Jonathan Allen at Vox reports that in a Friday afternoon Clinton financial disclosure "news dump" is evidence that Hillary "personally took money from companies that sought to influence her":
During Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, Corning lobbied the department on a variety of trade issues, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The company has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to her family's foundation. And, last July, when it was clear that Clinton would again seek the presidency in 2016, Corning coughed up a $225,500 honorarium for Clinton to speak.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 16, 2015 16 Comments
Every once in a while, we see stories about public schools banning the American flag from its students' bicycles and automobiles.  Every time the community pushes back against this sort of unreasonable policy, the policy suddenly changes, and the schools' representatives make a statement declaring the flag sacred, the school patriotic, and the intent of the flag ban benign or even beneficent. A South Carolina high school recently had such an epiphany after banning one of its students from flying the American and POW/MIA flags on his truck:
Peyton Robinson, a senior at York Comprehensive High School in York, S.C., has been driving his truck around our end of York County with two large flags attached to the bed – an American flag and one that honors military servicemen and women who have been taken as POWs (prisoners of war) or are MIA (missing in action). On Wednesday, May 13, he was pulled from class and sent to meet an administrator in the parking lot, where he discovered his flags had been removed and placed in the bed of his truck.  He was told by school officials, “Do not return to school with these flags.”
According to Peyton's Instagram post, the school administrators told him that "people had complained," but when the school issued its statement, they said the ban was due to "safety concerns."  Apparently, the flag was a driving hazard that the public high school was uniquely qualified to address.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 10, 2015 16 Comments
Lindsey Graham is soon to join the GOP primary field that so far (officially) consists of Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Mike Huckabee.  According to Fox News,
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham plans to announce his presidential campaign on June 1, GOP sources tell Fox News. Graham, a three-term senator from South Carolina, is known as a foreign policy hawk in Congress. Though he is considered a long shot -- and ranks near the bottom in recent polls of declared and potential Republican presidential candidates -- Graham could help drive the debate on national security among a GOP field that includes candidates who sharply question policies ranging from drone strikes to NSA surveillance.
While it's true that Graham's views on national security are more palatable to the conservative base than (say) Rand Paul's, there are areas that may not be reconcilable.  Graham is trying to establish himself not as the squishy "RINO" (Republican in Name Only) but as the "realist" in the field who will work in bipartisan fashion to accomplish his agenda.  It seems reasonable, in that case, to recall some of his bipartisan efforts in recent years: Remember the "Year of Immigration Reform"?  That was 2013, in case you missed it.  The Gang of Eight is often evoked in discussion of Marco Rubio's amnesty flip-flop, but it's worth remembering that Rubio was not the only Republican member.  Lindsey Graham was right there, effectively leading the GOP side:   "We're going to be aggressive in marketing the bill. This is an all hands on deck approach."

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 10, 2015 24 Comments
Jeb Bush's super PAC expects to raise $100 million by the end of this month.  According to Politico:
Jeb Bush is putting in motion an ambitious plan to develop a super PAC that would be unprecedented in its size and scope — a blueprint growing in scale and intensity as he nears the formal launch of his presidential campaign. The group, called Right to Rise, is said to be on track for raising an historic $100 million by the end of May, and its budget is expected to dwarf that of Bush’s official campaign many times over. In interviews, more than half a dozen sources familiar with the Right to Rise plans described a juggernaut that was rapidly taking shape — from its likely headquarters in Los Angeles, 2,700 miles from the Miami office where Bush was basing his campaign, to a new fundraising push aimed at expanding its ballooning coffers.
It turns out that his delay in announcing his candidacy is likely tied to campaign finance laws:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 09, 2015 25 Comments
In 2011, the DOJ ordered the Dayton Police Department and the Fire Department of New York to lower the required test scores of minorities after too many failed to pass the existing exams, and in 2013, the Marines changed their fitness requirement for women after the majority of female recruits were unable to perform the required three pull-ups. This week we learn that the FDNY is allowing a woman to become a fire fighter despite failing a crucial fitness exam.  According to The New York Post:
The FDNY for the first time in its history will allow someone who failed its crucial physical fitness test to join the Bravest, The Post has learned. Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed. “They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training. Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and tasked with the full duties of a firefighter.
As you might imagine, not everyone is thrilled with this development.  An FDNY member tells The Post, "We’re being asked to go into a fire with someone who isn’t 100 percent qualified.  Our job is a team effort. If there’s a weak link in the chain, either civilians or our members can die.” This is particularly problematic because Wax is the only female firefighter who has failed the fitness exam and still made the cut.  The female firefighters who passed the fitness and other exams are livid; the Post reports:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 09, 2015 13 Comments
Last year marked the twenty-year anniversary of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" that is often credited with helping usher in the 1994 Republican Revolution.  The Gingrich "Contract with America" was a simple, straightforward list of major reforms Republicans promised to introduce and bring up for a vote should they take control of Congress:
  • A balanced budget amendment and line item veto;
  • A crime bill that funds police and prisons over social programs;
  • Real welfare reform;
  • Family reinforcement measures that strengthen parental rights in education and child support enforcement;
  • Family tax cuts;
  • Stronger national defense;
  • A rise in the Social Security earnings limit to stop penalizing working seniors;
  • Job creation and regulatory reform policies;
  • Common sense legal reforms to stop frivolous lawsuits; and
  • A first-ever vote on term limits for members of Congress.
Within the first 100 days, the first Republican majority in both Houses of Congress in 40 years, passed bills tackling almost every item (the notable exception: term limits for Congress). That was then.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 04, 2015 24 Comments
While the official U.S. policy has long been that we don't pay ransom to terrorists who kidnap American citizens, the Obama administration is working to find a way around this long-standing and eminently sensible stance. The idea is to allow the family of hostages held by terrorists to pay ransoms to terrorists and avoid prosecution for aiding terrorist organizations.  ABC News reports:
Families of American hostages who communicate with foreign kidnappers or raise money and pay ransoms will no longer have to fear prosecution for aiding terrorist groups, a White House-ordered advisory group on U.S. hostage policy is expected to recommend, senior officials told ABC News last week. "There will be absolutely zero chance of any family member of an American held hostage overseas ever facing jail themselves, or even the threat of prosecution, for trying to free their loved ones," said one of three senior officials familiar with the hostage policy team's ongoing review.
It appears that in the matter of the families versus the government, both get their way.  The families, understandably, want to save their family members (though paying ransom is no guarantee), and this government prefers to negotiate with, rather than defeat terrorists.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 03, 2015 30 Comments
When Al Sharpton called for the nationalization of America's police forces earlier this month, many were quick to dismiss him as reactionary or even radical.  However, it may be worth revisiting this point in light of the news that the DOJ is going to be spending $20 million in body cams for police.  As Ed Morrissey notes:
This is another step in the de facto nationalization of police forces under the aegis of the DoJ. Milwaukee’s Sheriff David Clarke warned about that earlier in the week, and this is another soft step in that direction. The $20 million pilot program will almost certainly have to expand significantly in order to have an impact, and the DoJ will end up imposing it as a standard through the enforcement of their Civil Rights Division. That erodes the kind of local control that keeps police forces responsive to their own communities, much the same way that the avalanche of mandates from the Department of Education has done to school boards around the country. This is a decision that should be left to states and local communities.
When any entity takes money or resources from the federal government, it automatically becomes subject to regulations, restrictions, mandates, and oversight by the feds.  We see this in education both at the K-12 and the university level, in health care, even in senior centers where residents have been told they cannot pray before meals because their senior center receives federal funding. It is worrying, then, when the federal government decides to step in and provide body cams for local and state police.  The issue is not whether the cameras are a good idea; people on both sides of the aisle tend to agree that the cams will help resolve questions about police activities quickly, before incidents become inflamed.  The problem is the role of the federal government in local and state policing.  Do we really want a nationalized police force?

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 02, 2015 24 Comments
GoFundMe doesn't actually say Christians and conservatives need not apply, but it's difficult not to wonder if that is the intent of their policy change.  In the past week, they have shut down the GoFundMe pages of two Christian-owned businesses who declined to participate in same-sex weddings.  HotAir reports:
Last week they shut down fundraising pages for Sweet Cakes by Melissa and Arlene’s Flowers, two Christian-owned businesses facing discrimination charges for declining to provide services to same-sex weddings, and caught hell for it from conservatives online. With good reason. Until this week, GoFundMe banned fundraising “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts,” but Sweet Cakes and Arlene’s Flowers weren’t accused of crimes. They were accused of violating civil antidiscrimination statutes. Even if they had been accused of crimes, only a truly lunatic supporter of gay marriage would treat politely refusing to bake a wedding cake as on par with the sort of crimes people typically think of as “heinous.”
According to The Washington Times, the change in GoFundMe's Terms of Service, made after it shut down Sweet Cakes and Arlene's Flowers, includes the words "discriminatory acts":
The website quietly expanded its list of banned crowdfunding activities this week shortly after The Washington Times questioned GoFundMe’s reliance on its policy against campaigns in defense of “formal charges of heinous crimes” to pull fundraisers for Arlene’s Flowers and for Sweet Cakes by Melissa. The new policy, which includes a ban on campaigns in defense of “claims of discriminatory acts,” would appear to make it more difficult to raise money on behalf of businesses facing crippling civil damages awards after refusing to provide services for gay weddings for religious reasons.
Regardless of there being no formal charges filed, the far left was incensed when Indiana's Memories Pizza garnered over three quarters of a million dollars in GoFundMe donations.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on April 26, 2015 18 Comments
White supremacy, white privilege, whatever you want to call it, it's the attempt to "other" white people in America and to essentially blame all problems encountered by minorities on "white" power structures and on "white" justice systems. Obama and Eric Holder are big proponents, as we know, and as we've seen recently, so are all sorts of people in positions of power from the Al Sharptons right down to the local "community organizer." The good news is that you don't have to actually participate in this as a white person . . .  or even be aware of it, actually. If you're white (and male--doubly bad), you are racist even if you think you aren't, and you bask in a privilege that encircles you like a fluffy protective bubble, bouncing you from opportunity to opportunity from riches to more riches. All because you are white. Don't try to confuse the issue by noting that the president, former attorney general, and various well-paid MSNBC host proponents of white privilege are not actually white and are, by anyone's definition, privileged. This doesn't matter. Because white privilege! As Rick Moran writes:
What makes the academic study of “white supremacy” and “white privilege” so perfect for racialists is that it requires absolutely no parameters of study. There are no standards of proof. There is no way any claims can be vetted in peer-reviewed journals because the “evidence” can be explained by other factors. Anything and everything can be pointed to as being a result of white supremacy or white privilege because of one’s personal worldview — looking at the entire world through a prism of race. And apparently, you don’t even need a white person around for white supremacy to rear its ugly head.
This is just as absurd as it sounds, but it is what is behind much public policy today. From our universities to our local police stations, from the federal government to our local places of worship (well, the "white" ones), our culture is being fundamentally transformed.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on April 26, 2015 59 Comments
This week has been very revealing in terms of what conservatives actually think and what progressives imagine we think.  The "big" question that kicked it all off was "would you attend a gay wedding?"  This was, apparently, supposed to separate the knuckle-dragging haters on the right from the sophisticated and pious leftists.  John Nolte writes:
Another Republican presidential hopeful, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, made all kinds of headlines when he said something that would not surprise anyone who has spent any amount of time with a conservative Christian — that he would attend a same sex wedding. Out here in the real world this is a dog-bites-man story. Nevertheless, our media considered it as newsworthy as the sinking of the Titanic.
And that's the problem.  As surreal as it seems to most of us on the right, the leftist media and progressive groups actually believe that we have such hate in our hearts that we wouldn't support our own friends and family members should they be gay.  This is, after all, a very different question than whether or not gay "marriage" should be legal.  At least it is to us. This fundamental misunderstanding of conservatives seems more than a simple political weapon designed to rally progressives against those (supposedly) intolerant, nasty Republicans.  The conviction with which they approach such topics--so certain that some candidate's willingness to attend a gay friend's wedding will instill in the base a violent disgust--suggests that they really believe their own myths about us.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on April 25, 2015 27 Comments
David Frum's naive delight in what he seems certain is Elizabeth Warren's completely pure and altruistic populism leads him to insist that she'll run for president, despite her repeated statements that she will not.  He writes,
By now Warren knows (assuming she didn’t know before she arrived there) that the only thing the Senate can offer somebody like her is the velvety asphyxiation of every idealistic hope. If what you like best is the sound of your own voice and the deference of those around you, then a senatorship is a wonderful job. If you’re in politics to accomplish things, the institution must be almost unbearable. Can Warren bear it? The endless talk, talk, talk? The scoldings from White House aides whenever she says or does something they deem unhelpful? The merciless editing of her speech at the next Democratic National Convention —and the surgical exclusion from the innermost council of the party leadership? That’s the “unique role in the national conversation” in which a Hillary Clinton led Democratic party will cast Elizabeth Warren. Warren's got nothing to gain from staying put in the Senate except drudgery, ineffectuality, and humiliation.
She's simply too good for the Senate, and her beautiful soul can only be quashed and trampled in the Senate quagmire.  The only way to save herself--and America!--is to run against and beat Hillary for the Democrat nomination, and if she is as sincere as Frum believes her to be, she has no other choice but to run.  Frum explains:
If a politician expresses ideas that are shared by literally tens of millions of people—and that are being expressed by no other first-tier political figure—she owes it to her supporters to take their cause to the open hearing and fair trial of the nation. It would be negligent and irresponsible not to do so. Elizabeth Warren belongs to that unusual group who stick by their principles even when it might cost them something, including an election. But if you’re willing to lose for your principles, surely you should be willing to try to win for them?
However, what if Warren is not sincere but is, instead, inauthentic?
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