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Conservatives Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 03, 2016 134 Comments
Is Donald Trump the Republican nominee? Not *technically,* but it is much, much more likely than a day ago. There is an ever so slight possibility that Trump could be denied 1237 delegates going into the convention. I hope Cruz fights on. [Update - not to be, Cruz suspends campaign.] Conservatives on Twitter wasted no time in assessing the implications of The Trumpublican Party: https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/727634645404270596 https://twitter.com/philipaklein/status/727634781278711808

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 23, 2016 12 Comments
The long-running underground Hollywood conservative group, Friends of Abe, is no more. FOA announced yesterday that with the group's growth came an unsustainable infrastructure; one too cumbersome to continue without a substantive overhaul. The Guardian reported:
But on Thursday the organisation – which counts Jon Voight, Jerry Bruckheimer and Kelsey Grammer among its 1,500 members – made an abrupt announcement: it was dissolving.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 04, 2016 180 Comments
One has to wonder if the increasing conservative attacks are the reason why Donald Trump dropped out of his CPAC appearance at the last minute. At least the Twitter chatter I've seen the past day from people at the conference was pretty hostile. And let's face it, Ted Cruz took him to the cleaners last night at the debate on conservative issues.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 27, 2016 5 Comments
Liberal and conservative mean different things in countries outside the U.S. but in Jamaica, the only party that resembles what we would call conservative is the Jamaica Labour Party. The website Discover Jamaica describes the JLP this way:
The JLP is considered the more conservative and consistent party and has always espoused the free market system. During the 1970s and 80s it was vehemently anti-communist and pro-U.S.A.
The JLP just won control of the nation's government by running on job creation and tax cuts.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 23, 2016 83 Comments
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Republican side of the 2016 election has been the sharp divide among conservatives over Donald Trump. People tend to fall into one of three camps; love him, hate him or will support him if he's the nominee. On one side, you've got multiple conservative writers and thinkers who insist Trump isn't a conservative at all, as we saw with the special edition of National Review. On the other side, you have people like Sean Hannity of FOX News, Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit and John Nolte of Breitbart, all conservatives who appear enthusiastic about Trump's rise.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 22, 2016 47 Comments
I'm so old I remember when conservative blogs and websites used to communicate with each other on email lists and by frequent linking to each other. When Legal Insurrection started in October 2008, that was how we let the world know we existed and what we were writing. So-called "blog whoring," whereby smaller blogs clogged the inboxes of people at larger websites hoping for a link, was how it was done. This website would not have thrived without the appreciated links from Instapundit, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, and dozens of other blogs. Our Twitter page says we joined in December 2008, but I think it was another year or so before Twitter became a central communication focus for conservatives. In those "early" days I remember conservatives dominating Twitter -- the common wisdom was that liberals ruled on Facebook and conservatives ruled on Twitter. That has changed over time, and liberals are just as if not more influential on Twitter.

Posted by New Neo on September 10, 2015 25 Comments
It started yesterday, when conservative Republicans in the House expressed strong disagreement with the GOP leadership over whether to proceed with the vote of disapproval on the Iran deal. The conservative wing aimed to force Obama to first live up to the terms of Corker-Menendez and disclose the still-secret side deals with Iran that (which are an enormously important part of the big picture.) They claimed that the clock on the Congressional review period would not start until Obama complied, and thus the disapproval vote should be delayed. The movement had the support of Ted Cruz in the Senate, and many conservatives in the House (Roskam of Illinois; Pompeo of Kansas and the rest of the House Freedom Caucus). The House doesn't have a cloture or filibuster rule, so it is much easier to bring something to a vote there over minority Democratic opposition than it is in the Senate. Later, it was leaked that Boehner had given in to House conservatives on this issue, agreeing to postpone the vote and substituting a series of votes on three other resolutions in the House:

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 06, 2015 37 Comments
A newly published study shows taxpayers are (still) abandoning blue states and heading to states where Republicans retain a greater level of influence. Leah Jessen of the Daily Signal reported:
Study: Taxpayers Are Leaving Democrat-Run States for States Controlled by Republicans In an analysis of Internal Revenue Service income statistics and migration data, Americans for Tax Reform—an advocacy group for lower and simpler taxes—concluded that in 2013 more than 200,000 taxpayers fled states with a Democrat governor to states with Republicans in control. The analysis shows that in 2013 states run by Democrats lost 226,763 taxpayers while Republican-run states gained about 220,000 new taxpayers. The state with the most growth in new taxpayers? Texas. The state, governed by Republican Rick Perry during the 2012-2013 year, saw a positive net migration of 152,477 people. “Texas accounted for more than half of the net migration into the South,” the IRS reports.
The IRS report can be seen here.

Posted by New Neo on August 24, 2015 16 Comments
Those who were around during the Vietnam War protest days remember all those marches on Washington. I attended one, and it was absolutely huge and very impressive. And who can forget the photos of Martin Luther King standing in front of the Washington monument on the Mall? It's not clear how effective or important those marches were, even though they were actually dealing with administrations that appeared to care what the public thought, unlike the present administration. But visuals are powerful and they can affect some lawmakers and some of the public that hasn't made up its mind yet. They also help to rally energy on the part of those who are already aligned with the viewpoint of the demonstrators. And yes, the MSM would spin such demonstrations as it did the Tea Party demonstrations. But the MSM is not the only source of attention these days, and propaganda needs to be countered with better propaganda as well as facts. Facts all by themselves don't quite cut it, unfortunately.

Posted by New Neo on July 04, 2015 5 Comments
I saw the film "Yankee Doodle Dandy" on TV close to 30 times when I was a child. Loved it, and in particular loved the idea that James Cagney (whom I already knew as a tough old gangster from other movies) could dance. His dancing fascinated me because it was so non-balletic and idiosyncratic---the strutting, graceful/ungraceful, artful/artless uniqueness of his movement: Cagney wasn't just an actor and hoofer, although he certainly was both. He was also a political conservative and changer. Here are some excerpts from his Wiki page:
He was sickly as a young child—so much so that his mother feared he would die before he could be baptized. He later attributed his sickness to the poverty his family had to endure... Cagney believed in hard work, later stating, "It was good for me. I feel sorry for the kid who has too cushy a time of it. Suddenly he has to come face-to-face with the realities of life without any mama or papa to do his thinking for him."

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 05, 2015 35 Comments
For the last several weeks, we've been living in a sort of Twilight Zone episode where many people on the left including Obama and the media haven't realized how big the midterms were for Republicans. Until now. Reid Wilson of the Washington Post has just begun to notice:
Republicans in state governments plan juggernaut of conservative legislation Legislators in the 24 states where Republicans now hold total control plan to push a series of aggressive policy initiatives in the coming year aimed at limiting the power of the federal government and rekindling the culture wars. The unprecedented breadth of the Republican majority — the party now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers — all but guarantees a new tide of conservative laws. Republicans plan to launch a fresh assault on the Common Core education standards, press abortion regulations, cut personal and corporate income taxes and take up dozens of measures challenging the power of labor unions and the Environmental Protection Agency. Before Election Day, the GOP controlled 59 partisan legislative chambers across the country. The increase to 68 gives Republicans six more chambers than their previous record in the modern era, set after special elections in 2011 and 2012. Republicans also reduced the number of states where Democrats control both the governor’s office and the legislatures from 13 to seven.
Was the election yesterday? Is this new information about how many Republicans won?

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 11, 2014 18 Comments
PJ Media's Bill Whittle outlines his top five conservative principles in the latest edition of Afterburner. Whittle articulates the nexus of culture, politics, and American values succinctly on a regular basis. Seeing as Republicans just took control of the Senate, it's a good time to reflect on what we believe, why we believe it, and then proceed in a manner befitting that foundation. As Whittle says, "Conservatism kicks ass. You really should give it a try." Take a look:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 12, 2014 8 Comments
Lois Lowry's well-loved classic, The Giver, hits the silver screen Friday, August 15. Well produced, beautifully filmed, and featuring big name celebrities like Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Taylor Swift, and Katie Holmes, the cinematic adaptation of The Giver has created a buzz in the conservative community, but does it live up to the hype? I cringed when I heard the conservative community touting The Giver as a great film. I read the book in grade school, loved it, and naturally assumed the desperation for an ideologically friendly film would've produced the epic suckage we've come to see in releases like Atlas Shrugged. I figured rather than making a movie that subtly blended favorable ideological tones with great story telling, we were getting yet another awful conservative film; one so hell bent on brow beating conservatism, it sucked the joy right off the screen. I was very wrong. Set in a community genetically and physically designed to achieve absolute equality, the film opens with three teenagers preparing for their assignment day. "From great suffering came a solution, communities," Meryl Streep's character explains. Everyone in the community is assigned family units, clothes, jobs, and pretty much everything else that could possibly be assigned. Designed to be devoid of almost all emotion, the entire community merely exists. There is no love, no human connection, no pain, no living. Sameness was meant to protect humanity from pain, jealousy, envy, greed, the unexpected, and everything that ails the human condition. As events unfold, it's evident that despite their best intentions, the desire for sameness comes with calamitous consequences.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 04, 2014 64 Comments
Over the past few years, social conservatives have found their lifestyles (and in some cases, their livelihoods) under full assault by a very vocal, activist minority in the left. Progressive ire directed at the pro-life, pro-family, etc. crowd is nothing new, but with the advent of platforms like Twitter and Facebook, it's easier and faster to sling mud with few consequences. The Sunday Edition of the Dallas Morning News republished an essay by National Journal and Atlantic editor Jonathan Rauch about conservative Christians' "great secession" (his words, not mine) from the culture. Via the Dallas Morning News:
I am someone who believes that religious liberty is the country’s founding freedom, the idea that made America possible. I am also a homosexual atheist, so religious conservatives may not want my advice. I’ll give it to them anyway. Culturally conservative Christians are taking a pronounced turn toward social secession: asserting both the right and the intent to sequester themselves from secular culture and norms, including the norm of nondiscrimination. This is not a good idea. When religion isolates itself from secular society, both sides lose, but religion loses more.
Jonathan Rauch is a liberal. A gay, atheist liberal who writes for mainstream media outlets. But this article isn't about Jonathan Rauch, and it doesn't matter what he believes. The important thing to glean from articles like this one---even if something strikes a well-tuned nerve---is that there are people out there who aren't as gay, liberal, or faithless as Jonathan Rauch who are noticing these things too.
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