FIRST & FINAL Thoughts On the Week That Was…
FIRST In New York’s Times Square on Wednesday, in a rally against the Iran nuclear deal, a man took the stage and delivered a powerful and inspiring speech that had everyone who has seen it stand up and cheer.
The man’s name is Allen West. And sadly, he is not a 2016 presidential candidate.
Here is a small portion of his speech that has millions of Americans riveted:
“What message are we sending when we sit down with the number one state-sponsor of terrorism? What message are we sending when we sit down with a country that is holding four Americans hostage? It’s no different from the last time we had a weakling in the White House, when we had 53 Americans being held hostage… It’s not the message we sent to Britain 239 years ago… What type of commander in chief do you have?”
To answer your question Col. West: we have a president who leads from behind, appeases our enemies, and alienates our allies.
Who else could stand up on that stage in Times Square and say something so provocative and yet truthful? With that type of conviction? There are certainly many ways to deliver a speech that can be both profound and substantial. But there is just something to be said about a speech that is delivered with a booming voice and with passion seeping through the pores of the skin.
The retired Army colonel and former Florida congressman delivered such a speech.
He is a patriot and a leader. He evokes our inner desire to see America be seen once again as the last beacon of freedom on the face of the earth. His love for this country is undoubtable. It’s not a phony facade.
Though he lost (had stolen) his re-election bid for Congress in 2012, he hasn’t sulked. He is more valuable outside the halls of Congress leading the constitutional movement to restore our republic.
Perhaps Col. West’s time to run for president is at a later date. Perhaps he will run in 2024 (hopefully). Maybe he will be chosen as the Vice-Presidential running mate in 2016. Or maybe higher office is not in his future. Any scenario is fine by us as long as he stays at the forefront of America’s restoration.
As we saw on stage this week in New York City, Allen West has a gift to inspire and lead going forward.
Unlike the current occupant of the White House who leads from behind.
On nearly every FIRST & Final blog, we have written about the establishment and its feckless leadership.
Whether it’s Speaker of the House John Boehner, or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, we still can’t wrap our heads around the fact that in the past two mid-term elections in 2010 and 2014, the conservative grassroots movement has en masse gone to the polls to change the congressional leadership in both the House and Senate, and yet, nothing truly changes.
After the despicable and gruesome videos were released the past two weeks showing Planned Parenthood officials talking about harvesting and selling aborted baby parts, a vast majority of the public was outraged and disgusted by the revelations, assuming they actually have read or heard about it. The media are doing its usual bang-up job of either not reporting the story or burying it on page 12 just above the story about the global warming activists stuck in the Arctic due to too much ice! Make no mistake, and this is nothing new, the media must avoid reporting the story so that reasonable pro-choice Americans don’t change their view on abortion. We saw the same media cover up with the monster abortionist Hermit Gosnell a few years back.
What, you might ask, does this have to do with the establishment leadership (or lack thereof to be accurate) in Washington D.C.?
Plenty actually.
On Friday, Senator Rand Paul, along with Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, tried to offer amendments to the highway bill, currently being debated on the Senate floor, which would prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal money. The abortion clinic receives roughly $500 million in taxpayer money annually. But Sen. Paul was not recognized by the presiding officer of the Senate at the time and was therefore not able to offer the amendment. As a side note, Senator Paul also tried to offer an additional amendment to the highway bill that would allow military personnel to carry guns on bases. Well done Senator Paul, one of Conservative First’s leaders.
But back to Senator McConnell.
Did he purposely not recognize his fellow Kentucky colleague? What possible reason would the majority leader or his surrogates have for blocking the amendments from being brought to the floor?
Senator McConnell, do you not find the Planned Parenthood videos appalling? You certainly must.
Are you afraid of what the media and your across-the-aisle colleagues will say if you do defund the organization? Quite likely.
The answer is that the majority leader is using the highway bill to get the Export-Import Bank re-authorized, something President Obama wants done. Once again, Sen. McConnell is doing the layman’s work on behalf of the president.
Though conservatives are adamantly opposed to renewing the Ex-Im charter due to its crony capitalistic nature, the Chamber of Commerce and the D.C. political ruling class are pushing for its renewal.
After it was revealed that Mitch McConnell is pushing for the renewal, Sen. Ted Cruz spoke fiercely on the Senate floor on Friday accusing the majority leader of lying to his face that there was no deal in place to revive the Ex-Im Bank. This “deal” stems from McConnell secretly pledging to certain members of his caucus to revive the bank bill at a future date in exchange for their support of Obama’s trade bill.
Senator Cruz went on to accuse McConnell of running the Senate like Harry Reid. Ouch!
The Texas senator also said this: “we keep winning elections and then we keep getting leaders who don’t do anything they promised.”
Oh, the majority leader of the U.S. Senate did promise something. But that promise was to the president, not to the conservatives who actually did the work to make Mitch McConnell the majority leader.
Big mistake on our part.
Aborted baby parts versus crony capitalism: score one for big business.
Speaking of the Export-Import Bank, we must ask this: when you are a member of the United States Senate and running for president, is it wise to be strongly on the side of two very liberal senators who support the bank’s re-authorization charter?
If you ask us, being mentioned in the same breath as Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both of Washington state, is a sure sign that you are way out of touch with your party’s base.
But for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, this is nothing new and quite frankly, expected. He, along with both the female senators from the Evergreen State, is advocating hard for the re-authorization of the bank’s 80 year charter.
The Ex-Im bank is everything that conservatives have railed against for decades. We ask, “why is the U.S. taxpayer subsidizing Boeing and other big corporations? These companies claim the bank helps them compete internationally with other companies who are subsidized by their own government. Millions of taxpayers are no doubt unaware of the true cronyism that takes place. If they did the research, the would no doubt learn that Boeing would survive just fine without the help from the Ex-Im Bank.
As for the 2016 presidential hopeful Sen. Graham, why must you always be on the wrong side of history? Why are you constantly at odds with the majority of your party, the conservative grassroots movement? Despite what you and many of your establishment colleagues think, the majority of your party are not fat cat donors, the country club elitist types, or moderate and establishment ruling class operatives.
The sooner you realize and accept that fact, the sooner we can get to work on winning elections and restoring our constitutional republic.
Senator Graham, sir, you can fool a certain percentage of the voters in your home state but you can’t fool an entire nation.
Getting into bed, figuratively, with the two liberal senators from Washington state to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank is yet another example of you being on the other side of conservatism.
Though, we will say this: you do know how to destroy a cell phone. That was well done and clever.
Final We salute Senator Mike Lee of Utah, another one of our leaders, who will try to invoke the nuclear option on Sunday to repeal Obamacare. The process is complicated and you can read more about how the senator intends to repeal the healthcare monstrosity with a simple 51 vote majority here.
This move by the freshman senator from Utah is exactly why millions of conservatives all across the country have faith that the younger generation of U.S. Senators such as Lee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Tom Cotton to name just a few, will take on the old guard in the upper chamber and listen to what we the people want done to make America great once again.
Talk in Washington D.C. is cheap, extremely cheap. So anytime a member of Congress stands up and takes charge, regardless of the odds, we cheer him or her on.
Leaders are scarce in politics. But if the establishment cares to look over their collective shoulders, they will see a constitutional conservative brigade ready to take charge.
