FIRST & FINAL Thoughts On the Week That Was…
Happy New Year! We hope you have a wonderful 2016.
We kick off our first edition of the FIRST & Final blog this year with some thoughts on the week that was and a few predictions for the upcoming political year.
FIRST The big news of the week was once again the President of the United States issuing more unconstitutional executive actions. This time, on Tuesday at a White House press conference, he announced new executive actions on gun control measures that even the Associated Press reports would not have stopped even one mass shooting!!
In typical fashion, the president was condescending, scornful, and angry throughout the press conference, crocodile tears notwithstanding.
The president can mock those of us afraid of having our gun rights stripped away, but each day, we slowly see our liberties erode with no end in sight due to the feckless leadership in Washington D.C. from the GOP.
This latest attempt by the president to restrict gun rights must be stopped and we must force our elected officials to refrain from giving in to his emotional pleas and false talking points.
Those who do will receive the primary wrath from we the people.
So maybe Donald Trump and Ted Cruz aren’t so friendly after all.
First, Senator Ted Cruz was forced to answer questions concerning his eligibility to be president this week when Donald Trump went on the offensive against Cruz over his birthright citizenship. Senator Cruz, born in Canada to an American citizen mother working in Calgary, even tried to settle this non-issue by releasing a copy of his mother’s birth certificate to the media on Friday to prove she was born in the United States.
And yet, in Iowa yesterday, Mr. Trump attacked Sen. Cruz again and warned the crowd at the rally that the junior Texas senator could face legal trouble inside the courts should he become president.
Sen. Cruz, as usual, took the high road when asked on Saturday about Trump’s latest attack and suggested that his high polling numbers in Iowa are one of the reasons for suddenly being a target by the other candidates.
However, it’s not just the issue of his birthright eligibility that Trump is questioning. The business mogul also went after Cruz over the senator’s opposition to ethanol subsidies which is obviously a big issue in presidential politics in Iowa.
Cruz, while still standing on principle by not supporting government subsidies that conservatives abhor but also aware of how Iowan farmers are upset with him, is trying to balance this delicate issue by saying he wants to roll back Environmental Protection Agency regulations that hurt ethanol farmers, a slight reprieve for him.
Regardless, Mr. Trump has gone on the attack against Sen. Cruz in an attempt to add doubt (eligibility) about his candidacy while getting Iowans to think twice (ethanol) about whether or not Cruz cares about the issues that are at the heart of many Iowan voters.
We thought their might be some fireworks at the last debate in Las Vegas in mid-December between Trump and Cruz and nothing happened. Perhaps with the Iowa caucuses nearly just three weeks away and Cruz now leading most polls in the Hawkeye state, Trump may finally step up the attacks on Sen. Cruz in this week’s presidential debate in South Carolina.
But will Cruz respond?
Stay tuned.
It took a few years but they did it. Finally.
The United States House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to repeal Obamacare using the budget reconciliation process. Speaker Paul Ryan says defunding Planned Parenthood is in this bill. We have too many issues with Speaker Ryan to name here but we do applaud this long-overdue action.
President Obama, as expected, vetoed the bill but now he is on record of supporting this healthcare legislation monstrosity that has seen premiums rise, doctors no longer being available to the patient, and businesses large and small holding back from hiring workers due to the law’s regulations.
Praising the GOP leadership never comes easy for us. But in this particular case, however, they deserve it.
We just wonder, however, if they would have gone through with it if 2016 was not an election year.
The establishment tries hard to come across as being conservative every two and four years. We aren’t fooled.
We salute Texas Governor Greg Abbott this week for calling on his state to join others in calling for an Article V Convention of the States to offer “nine amendments to the Constitution that will restore the Rule of Law in America.”
We are big supporters of Article V after reading radio host and constitutionalist Mark Levin’s best-selling book The Liberty Amendments two years ago. The framers of the Constitution feared an overreaching federal government and provided a mechanism to restrict its power.
Unfortunately, many ill-informed scholars, pundits, and state legislators, among others, think an Article V convening of the states is a bad idea and would lead to a “runaway convention” that could strip away basic rights like free speech and gun rights.
The debate of a runaway convention is prominent even among conservatives, with many calling Article V akin to opening Pandora’s Box. If the framers truly thought that future generations of legislators would throw out the entire Constitution and start all over, they never would have provided a process to rein in an out of control federal leviathan.
To prevent an out of control convention, and to silence the critics, Gov. Abbott lays out the agenda in advance in what he calls the “Texas Plan” that limits the Texas Legislature’s participation at the convention should it stray from the issues laid out in the plan.
Even with advance plans like the one Texas puts forth, there will still be conservative critics who deride an Article V convention. But remember: it takes 2/3 of the states to call for a convention and 38 states to pass any measure. No small feat.
We have no other choice. The framers gave us the blueprint to fix our republic. We must embrace it. The country is on the brink.
Governor Greg Abbott is taking the lead.
Well done.
Final Here are some of our predictions for 2016, which should be a very interesting political year and God-willing, a successful presidential year with conservatives rising up and electing someone dedicated to the Constitution and restoring this great republic.
- Jeb Bush will drop out of the presidential race after finishing 5th in the New Hampshire primary which follows a poor showing in Iowa.
- Having finished 3rd in New Hampshire, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will struggle to maintain the momentum in South Carolina and Nevada in the following weeks and drop out.
- With a poor showing in Iowa in which she finishes 8th, Carly Fiorina drops out of the race before the New Hampshire primary.
- After finishing 7th in Iowa, Sen. Rand Paul bows out of the race. His candidacy could be one of the most disappointing presidential campaigns in recent memory.
- Ted Cruz will win the Iowa caucuses with Donald Trump finishing second but the businessman easily wins New Hampshire which sends the establishment into panic mode. We hope this is the case and certainly can’t wait.
