From #NeverTrump to #StuckWithTrump: Why I now focus solely on the issues

There haven’t been very many times that I praised anything about Donald Trump on this blog. Most of those moments were in relations to Hillary Clinton, the only Democrat so distasteful that she could lose to him. I consider myself the hipster version of #NeverTrumpers; I opposed his liberalism before it became cool.

Things have changed. He’s going to be the President of the United States in a little over a month. There’s no longer anything for me to oppose about him as a person or a candidate. It’s not that those issues disappeared. It’s that opposing them no longer offers any benefit. It’s time to shift gears and focus on the only things that are politically important for the next 2-4 years (depending on how the GOP performs in the 2018 election): the issues.

I’ll be first to admit that some of Trump’s choices for cabinet have been positive. It’s not like I expected to hate all of them, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. James Mattis and Jeff Sessions are both solid choices. Mick Mulvaney could turn out to be an excellent choice and, though I know very little about him, David Friedman seems to have the right perspectives on Israel.

They say when you’re going to say something mean about someone, you should start with the positives. So far, those are all of them.

Before I get to the negatives, it’s important to understand my stance. With Trump and the GOP in charge in Washington DC and in most states, this is a grand opportunity. I go in with low expectations about how they will handle their power because they’ve given very few indications they will use it appropriately. As a proud member of the new Federalist Party, my greatest hope in American government is that Washington DC will dramatically reduce its own powers in all three forms: budget, bureaucracy, and power. That should be the primary long-term goal of the GOP, but so far it seems to be very low on the totem pole. In fact, it seems like most of the talk out of Republicans lately have surrounded measures that will increase budgets while only offering token reductions in bureaucracy and power.

This is why it’s all about the issues for me going forward. If I allow myself to look at the individuals, my low expectations will go even lower. The people in charge, from Trump to Mitch McConnell to Rex Tillerson to Paul Ryan, all seem to be against the concept of reducing government power. They talk about smaller government, but the changes they’re proposing are infinitesimal compared to the actions that are truly necessary.

Briefly, here are the issues that concern me. Each could have their own set of blog posts written about them, but I’ll keep it limited to bullet points. If you don’t recognize that these are problems, it would be hard to convince you even with longer explanations.

• Carrier’s crony capitalism deal
• Taking down defense industry stock prices with Tweets that hurt American investors
• Touting a $50B investment from a “Japanese firm” that gets the vast majority of its funds from Saudi Arabia
• Reince Priebus
• Outrageously expensive infrastructure plans (for which Trump is leaning towards the Schumer plan rather than the McConnell plan)
• Ivanka’s daycare initiative
• Obamacare uncertainty (this isn’t hard: assess, prepare to replace, repeal, then replace)

There are other potential concerns from the relationship with Vladimir Putin to his softening on illegal immigration and deportations, but those and most other concerns can’t be fully understood until he’s in office. Items in the list above are all already concerning.

When the government does the right things, I’ll cheer regardless of who’s doing it or their party allegiance. When they do the wrong things as most of them are wont to do, I’ll oppose loudly. This is no longer a question of personalities or history. With the election over, it’s all about the issues, so they will become my primary political focus. I encourage everyone else to take a similar approach.

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Triggered.

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No, OSU, Abdul Razak Ali Artan was not killed by police because of race

Fearlessness and lack of discernment are often dangerous bedfellows. As innocuous as it may seem, the dangerous combination has reared its head in a potentially disastrous way at Ohio State University. The Coalition of Black Liberation reads the names of black people killed by police every week. This week, they added the name of Abdul Razak Ali Artan to the list.

For those who don’t remember, Artan is the Ohio State student who went on a car-ramming, knife-wielding rampage on campus. Thankfully, he was unable to kill anyone, but he did injure several and it could have been much worse. He was shot and killed by police.

That’s where the danger of the radical campus group’s decision comes into play. For a while now, these groups have mixed together people who were clearly dangerous and committing crimes with those who shouldn’t have been killed. This type of narrative jamming is typical, but normally there are lines drawn. One such line is that we normally don’t classify the police killing of an attempted murderer and/or terrorists in with people who were killed during traffic stops, but that’s what they’re now doing. The danger: when protests are lodged against clearly righteous kills, it becomes protest/riot-worthy every time someone of a particular race is killed by police.

This should worry us all.

Instead of portraying terrorists and attempted murderers as victims, perhaps these groups should spend more time cheering for law enforcement when they’re defending the lives of innocent people. It would make their other protests much more powerful. Instead, they’ve chosen to make a mockery of their entire movement.

Here’s an excerpt from The Lantern:

“Abudl Razak Ali Artan was a BUCKEYE, a member of our family. If you think it is ok to celebrate his death and/or share pictures of his dead body and I see it in my timeline, I will unfriend you. I pray you find compassion for his life, as troubled as it clearly was. Think of the pain he must have been in to feel that his actions were the only solution. We must come together in this time of tragedy. #BuckeyeStrong #BlackLivesMatter #SayHisName”

Read more on The Lantern.

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Dear John Kasich: Sign the “Heartbeat Bill”

How the fight against abortion will be fought for the next 2-4 years can be shaped by one man: Ohio Governor John Kasich. He has the opportunity to sign the “Heartbeat Bill” which would prohibit doctors from committing abortions once a heartbeat is detected. This happens as early as six weeks.

The Governor has expressed some concerns. While he’s pro-life, his views lean towards the moderate end of the spectrum. There are controversial pieces to the bill, most notably the prohibition on abortions even in cases of rape or incest. Kasich has stated that he believes in exceptions for abortions.

There’s another factor that’s being considered: court challenges. If he signs the bill, it will turn Ohio into ground zero for abortion activists. There will be more protests and legal challenges filed in the state than it’s ever seen before. Kasich, considered a pragmatic leader, will use this as the reason to veto the bill if he does. This would be a mistake. It’s time for challenges. It’s time to test the court system to see what it will take to fight this battle in other states. Pragmatic conservatives will say that we need to stack the courts first, but this would be a mistake. Because legal challenges take so long to prepare and moving up the court system is a tedious process, we must start now. If we wait, it’s possible for the courts to already be reversed if Donald Trump loses in 2020.

Assuming that Trump keeps to his promise of nominating a staunchly pro-life Supreme Court justice, this may be the best time in modern history to make an impact in the war on abortion. By the time the Heartbeat Bill reaches the Supreme Court, Trump’s nominee should be confirmed.

By signing the bill, Kasich will stretch the limits and encourage other states to prepare to head in the same direction. They will all be watching to see how it plays out in the courts, but being the “first on the dance floor” gives Ohio the opportunity to set the agenda. Currently, most states have various restrictions on abortion prohibition ranging from “viability” or the third trimester up to 24 weeks. By pushing the limit all the way up to heartbeat status, around 6 or 7 weeks from conception, other states will be able to get their own similar legislation ready.

I’ve never been a big fan of John Kasich, but his stalwart opposition to Donald Trump demonstrated that he’s willing to stick to his guns. This is a time when he needs his guns pointed in the right direction. It will give him pause from a moral perspective to stretch the limits so far and to include rape or incest. It will seem like the impractical move for a practical politician to make. He must push all of those urges aside and act boldly now for the sake of the fight against abortion. Blinking now will allow the opportunity to pass. Millions of future Americans can be saved by a signature. Sign the bill, Governor.

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Why the Federalist Party isn’t raising money. Yet.

Ever since buzz started hitting the internet about the new Federalist Party, there have been people reaching out to me consistently asking how to donate. The quick answer is, “don’t, at least not yet.”

There are reasons that I’ll get into shortly about why we’re considering not taking donations at all, but let’s start with the longer answer about how to at least pledge right now. The party set up a pledge page that allows members to promise future donations without having to send money now or give any financial information such as credit card data. It’s important that we get an understanding of how much we’ll be able to collect if and when we do start collecting, so getting semi-committed pledges is the bast way to do it.

One of the important premises behind the Federalist Party is that we believe in the power of the market and the individuals driving it over the power of government which often hampers more than it helps. Solutions for the majority of problems Americans face come best when they’re provided by the private sector. That’s not universal; we wouldn’t want a private military as our primary national defense, for example, but when it comes to most needs, if the government stepped out of the way and allowed people to solve problems in lieu of having their tax dollars wasted through government programs, everyone would be happier.

The challenge is that Americans have been brainwashed into believing that government should be solving the problems directly. This wasn’t always the case. It was less than a century ago when the people believed in their own abilities more than the ability of government to fix their problems. The Great Depression and subsequent solutions started the shift away from this mentality and by the 1960s, the people were much more heavily dependent on the government. The irony is that the problems that initiated this shift were created as a result of the government trying to interfere too much in private affairs, but that’s a conspiracy theory to unpack at another time.

Because we believe that private organizations can outperform public ones, we are strongly considering running the national party essentially as a business. Rather than file it as a tax-exempt entity operating off of funds that weren’t earned but rather begged from the people, we are considering earning our funds at the national level.

As the state level, this isn’t possible, and that’s fine. The strongest tenet of this party is that it should be able to operate with the same mentality that we would run the country once we have our officials in office: separation of powers between the state party organization and the national entity. While the states and individual candidates will still have to follow the rules in order to get on ballots and acquire voter lists, the national organization will be free to operate with the flexibility that comes from not having a dependence on donations or a tax exempt status.

Again, this is all still under consideration, which is why accumulating pledges is so important. If, after looking at the legalities and logistics, we come to the conclusion that a national party structure operating as a corporation will work, we’ll take that path. We would rather earn the party’s revenue rather than beg for it or accept federal funds. We will still maintain all of the mandated transparencies associated with 527 tax exempt organization, but we will pay taxes. Why should we not pay taxes and beg money from people who do pay taxes? That’s not the American way, nor is it the Federalist way, but it’s the way that every other party has chosen. We aren’t like every other party.

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In case you missed it, I’m a Federalist

Of all of the websites I contribute to, this has always and will always be my favorite. It’s the second website I ever personally owned and it represents more of my direct feelings. Yes, there have been a few guest contributors, but for the most part it has been all my writing lately. It’s the way it should be.

For this reason, I sometimes forget to post to it. That’s not a representation of my sentiment towards the site, but things have been really crazy thanks to a combination of necessity and blessing. I often assume that all of the readers of this site know exactly what I’m doing based upon what I do on other sites. In case you don’t here it is…

Most things are as they were a year ago. I’m still learning (and occasionally teaching) the Bible. I’m still enjoying my family. My business is doing well and I’m working on new initiatives within it. Then, there’s the politics. Most of my political efforts were done in the form of daily posts through the primaries, but we lost. Donald Trump was nominated, so my attentions shifted towards seeking an alternative.

We tried many different parties. I contacted pretty much every party running a conservative that I could find, even if they weren’t big enough to make an impact. What I quickly learned was that they weren’t simply victims of low media coverage. They were victims of disorganization and lack of growth plans. I actually nearly lost hope in prospects for the future, but something happened. A wild idea turned into a quick inquiry. That inquiry was met with so much enthusiasm that I expanded the idea to a plan. The plan was working much better than I expected, so I started contacting more people about it, particularly those in the media. By the time all was said and done, I found myself heading into election day with a solid foundation upon which to build a new conservative political party.

After election day, the Federalist Party will be born.

I know what you’re thinking because I thought it myself. Third parties can’t win in the United States. What I know that you don’t is that the reason third parties don’t work is because we accept that they don’t work. More importantly, we’ve never seen a third party with the gumption and strategy to make itself work, to break through the imaginary boundary that protects the two major parties.

Here is not the place to go into details yet and it’s about time to take the family to a movie, so I’ll leave you with this thought: If we can suspend disbelief in the possibility of a viable third party, we can actually make it happen, God willing. That’s what I’ve been working on lately. I’m hopeful that you will join us in this project.

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“Conservative” media needs to stop acting like Obama’s journopuppets for Trump

Look, I get it. You want Trump to win. You’re a journalist for a “conservative” media outlet and you want to paint Donald Trump in the best light possible. Stick to the facts. Paint a proper picture. With Hillary Clinton on the other side, you don’t need to paint him as a superhuman, fearless avatar of strength. We’ve already seen eight years of that with Barack Obama’s crony media.

The headline below appears on a Trumpyte publication, Lifezette, operated by Laura Ingraham. For the record, I’m not a Trump supporter. I believe in conservative principles, most of which Mr. Trump fails to appreciate or support. Still, he’s the GOP nominee and the alternative is horrendous, so I can appreciate those who want him to win because he’s a better option. I don’t completely disagree, but this headline is over the top.

No, he didn’t stare down a threat. If you watch the video, he’s looking out into the crowd to see what the commotion is, just as he’s done dozens of times when protesters hit his campaign events. Thankfully, he didn’t say something stupid this time that could have gotten someone in the audience hurt. When the Secret Service agent first came over, Trump did not stare defiantly. He reacted a little slowly, not because he was triumphantly staring down the threat but because he’s a 70-year-old man who’s slow to react to threats. Once he realized he needed to move, he followed his escort appropriately to the pre-determined spot backstage (most likely in an armored vehicle waiting outside for him) and awaited further instructions.

Trump is rushed off stage by security at event in Reno. http://pic.twitter.com/BJZm5Z8DfN

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 6, 2016

This wasn’t bad. He did exactly as he should whether he’s a candidate or the President. Painting this as anything other than an appropriate response to a potential threat is yellow journalism at it’s finest.

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Dang Russians.

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Aging.

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John Kasich stays true by clowning himself with his vote

On one hand, Ohio Governor and former Presidential candidate John Kasich did the right thing by choosing not to vote for the liberal Republican nominee Donald Trump. Then, he wiped out his credibility by using his protest vote on the liberal Senator from Arizona John McCain.

There are a few options available to Kasich who are not only much more conservative but who are actually running for President. Constitution Party’s Darrell Castle, America’s Party’s Tom Hoeffling, and independent Evan McMullin are all available for Kasich to write in, but he chose the one guy who won’t be getting a substantial number of protest votes.

This is John Kasich being John Kasich at his finest. More from Mediaite:

As other GOP presidential candidates have eventually relented and offered their support to Trump, such as former critics Marco Rubioand Ted Cruz, Kasich has held firm. During the Republican National Convention, Kasich stayed far away, despite it being held in Cleveland.

Read more on Mediaite.

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