From my family to all of yours

I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas. Let's remember today those troops who will not be spending Christmas with there family's so we all can.
God Bless and Merry Christmas

Being a Liberal sucks sometimes...

Especally when you have a re-election coming up. I am talking about Senator Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) recent change of heart when it comes to Iraq. On '4/19/2007 Senator Reid said that " ...this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything." Now 12/21/07 Reid now feels that "the surge certainly has'nt hurt. Its helped, I recognize that."

Wow, Mister Majority Leader, you certianly have come a long way. This is the type of hypocriscy that has become a trademark of the Modern Democratic Party.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-ca) and Reid have been basing the success of the Democratic Party in the 2006 mid term elections on "the Republican's blundering of the Iraq War" and the peoples desire for change. Now this "blundering" is suddently acceptable by the Democratic Leadership and success is a option again (go figure). These people never have any principle, they will say and do anything in order to win.

Liberals will be mad and stamp their feet, and hopfully the DNC will listen to them. We know in 2006 acting conservative is part of the reason Democrats won, and hopfully moveon.org will put pressure on them to act as liberal as possible. I want Americans to recognize the difference between the Conservatives who want to win this war, and the liberals who want to win this election.

Mike Huckabee: Were damned if we do and were damned if we dont

Hey All!! I hope everybody has had good couple of shopping days before Christmas. Thank you all for voting in the last poll, with 50% of you saying moderates are bad for the party, and 41% saying they are good for the party. One vote could have made the difference, with only person saying they are not sure.

Now, for everybody who has been paying close attention, we have seen Mike Huckabee surge in the polls in the Iowa and South Carolina where he is taking the lead, and moving up to second in the national polls. What many conservatives are asking now is " he is the candidate that we want?"

Mike Huckabee is appealing greatly with the social conservative voters around the country. This and his desire to help implement the Fairtax are certainly part of why he soaring so high in the polls. Many social conservatives feel he is the most authentic in this sense, with Huckabee once being a minister and a past record on social issue that is not as shaky as the other candidates (Romney openly being pro-choice in 90's, Guiliani being pro-choice now, Thompson working for a lobbying firm that was pro-choice). Many social conservatives feel the party will be "damned if we dont" put Huckabee into office.

The problem with Huckabee is that he is not a typical conservative. He even puts himself on record saying he is not a typical Republican. But what does this mean? Huckabee has a fiscal record that even Bill Clinton would be ashamed of. The Club for Growth has labeled Huckabee as being a very big government Conservative. He speaks of Government programs to help people loose weight. E. J. Dionne of real clear politics says "Huckabee himself preaches a gospel of populism that rejects conservative orthodoxy on trade, the value of government and the beneficence of Wall Street." Huckabee does not seem to value the business aspect of the Republican Party, the aspect we all know is important to ensuring our economy runs smoothly and helps us all make money in the future. In a nutshell, all the economic libertarians are saying "were damned if we do" nominate Mike Huckabee.

My personal feelings on Mike? I must admit i like his attitude and his demeanor, and I have actually met his wife ( a very nice women btw). My problem is, can we say as conservatives we are dedicated to the causes of conservatism if we nominate a candidate who deviates from the ]platform? Remember that a presidential nominee is a symbolic representation of what the Republican Party is. We became the Party of conservatism when Barry Goldwater won the nomination. Please remember this when you vote soon.

Green Conservatism: Why conservatism can also be innovative

I am going to link Newt Gingrich's article Green Conservatism: A New Way of Thinking About the Environment to this blog for all of you to read. Newt once again proves how intelligent he is by tackling an issue most do not associate with conservatism.

The idea conservatives can and should take the lead with innovation is one I wish would be talked about more. While it is assumed that being conservative means you want to keep things the same, I think Newt is able to explain why we can innovative and still follow our principles.

The link to the article is here.

Why we must not take Iran for granted

Recently a report by a United States intellignece organization found that in 2003 Iran had halted its nuclear program. President Ahmadinejad took it upon himself to take this opportunity to say that this was a "declaration of surrender" on the part of the United States.

At this same time, the Russian government makes its first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran today, after a much waited debate over sanctioning Iran over its nuclear program.

Many liberals are breathing easy, because now we cant just charge into Iran and once again try to free a country from a deranged government. The paranoia many liberals feel about engaging this enemy is the highest its ever been. Moveon.org has been swift to condemn a vote in the senate to label Iran's Revolutionary guard a terrorist organization as a act of aggression.

But are we out of the water with Iran now that this report tells us we are? Absolutely not. Iran is now in the process of creating a second nuclear power plant, and a senior Iranian official recently said that Iran had no "intention of halting its nuclear enrichment programs."

Ahmadinejad's attitude and crazy demeanor has lead many in the west to question the dangers of a nuclear Iran. I must say any and all things must be done to prevent Iran acquiring nucelar weapons, including force if diplomacy fails.

Why would it be so bad if Iran gets nuclear weapons? Part of the problem is the instability it would cause in the region. Iran would now be a super power in the region, able to influence any of the governments it sees fit. It is written into Iran's constitution that all countries must become Islamic States, with Iran paving the path . There is no doubt Iran would back up pro-fundamental Islamic regimes in different countries, causing much more turmoil in the region. We saw in the 1980's the Iranian desire to turn Iraq into a pro-shia, pro-Iranian government. We see these efforts on Tehran's part in Iraq currently, with Iranian troops supplying insurgents with supplies that are hurting our troops now as we speak. The idea a Iranian government with a nuclear bomb would not "be that bad" as a liberal told me once, is preposterous.

Not to mention the countries constant verbal attacks on Israel and its support of aggression against it. I need not remind you that Ahmadinejad has denied the holocaust and blames Israel for the all problems in the middle east. He even uses Israel as a scapegoat for its high unemployment rate. There is no doubt Israel would be in grave danger is Iran ever got its hand on the bomb.

Sure, this report says it stopped its nuclear program. But many also believe that Iran is playing the same games Iraq did with regard to weapons inspectors, and trying to cover it up before they start again. I wish i believed this report was accurate, but to much evidence is pointing to the contrary. If we do not elect a leader who is willing to stand up against Iran, we may have a much bigger problem than Iraq, a nuclear Iran.

Im sorry for the inconvenience

It was recently brought to my attention that i made a great deal of errors in the last post. I want to apologize to my audience for this. You deserve the most professional, well written blog there is. While i am only human, i will try my best to limit these mistakes.

Once again, My deepest apologies and my gratitude to those who cared enough to alert me to this.

Are moderates good or bad for the Republican Party

Hello Folks,
I wanna thank all of you all who took my poll recently. The results came back with more than half of all who voted believing that keeping a democrat out of the white house is far more important than insuring a Republican will be conservative.

This alarms me a little bit. It seems after 8 years of George Bush, a Republican who believes in expanding governments role and letting spending get out of control, that Republicans have moved away from the right.

So this leads me to ask, are moderate Republicans bad for the party? Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" lead Bush to focus on the issues of poverty and addressing the global aids epidemic. While this is does not make bush a moderate, the way he went about it was.

Almost 8 years later and now Republicans have lost both the house and the senate. I believe part of this came from the Republicans in congress taking George Bush's lead and ignoring the free market conservatism that made them great during the 1990's.

Now, many in congress are alienating moderate Republicans. Tom Davis has received a backlash from the conservative base in his district because of many votes against tax cuts (such as the 1994 contract with American tax cut and voting against the troop surge). Many now contend that this infighting with moderates caused a great deal of problems that also lead to the republican defeat.

I personally believe that moderates are pulling us away from the right, and the right is the reason Republicans win. Republicans lost in 06 because we ran to the left while Democrats ran to right, and look how that turned out.

We Republicans need to stick to our Goldwater- Reagan roots, without those we have nothing.

Your opinions please!!!! Leave comments and take the poll

Punishing Gas companies only punishes Americans

A new energy bill that is passing through the senate this morning recently had the nearly 13 billion dollars in taxes dropped from them this morning. This new bill was intended to increase the fuel economy of U.S. cars and trucks from 35% to 40% by 2020. These taxes were originally intended by Democrats to the federal government make up the estimated 3 billion it will use beucase of the increased fuel efficiency .

While I am not a Conservative who thinks trying to help the environment is not a bad thing, i most certainly am a conservative who thinks raising taxes is.

The thing many Americans do not realize is that no businesses or corporation pays taxes. WE the consumer, pay taxes. Every tax that the government levies on a business is then reflected in the final price, the price that you and me pay. Do any of you think having to pay and extra $1.00 to a $1.50 extra a gallon on fuel is going to helping the avergae persons pocketbook?

Democrats always claim to speak for the little guy who needs a helping hand. If this is the case, raising my gas prices are not going to help me, and they are not going to help the millions of Americans who have to fill up there gas tank in order to live their lives. Instead of raising my taxes, why not make some budget cuts. As much money as the federal government wastes, I am sure they can make the cut somewhere.

Good Job Senate Republicans!!

Republicans hold onto VA-01 and OH-05

As those of you know yesterday, Robb Wittmann (R-VA1) became the new congressman of the first district of Virginia. This was one of two GOP victories in special elections, with a race being help in Ohio's5th district, with Republican Bob Latta winning that seat as well.
Good News:
Republicans are not disliked so much that we loose seats that have been republican for 30 years (at least thats the case with VA-1).
The Bad News: the NRCC had to dump money into both of these races, money that it is not going to have when it comes to the general elections in 2008.

So what does it all mean?

The fact that districts like these needed money pumped into them show that the next election cycle is going be extremely competitive, even in solid republican districts. The NRCC may not have money like this for incredibly competitive districts.


Next year is not going to be fun at all to say the least

And the Winner is...

with no doubt in my mind, former delegate Rob Wittman.
The election results came out as I expected, with Wittman winning 61% to 36%.
While i typically would do some analysis on how the precincts voted, i must say this is a very boring district to analyze. The only city Wittman did not win was Williamsburg, where his opponent, Forgit is from.

I am happy to know that Republicans are not so disliked that they cannot even win in this district. Congratulation's Congressman Wittman, do us proud in the house.

VA First District Special Election day coverage

Its going to be a bit of a hectic day folks, so i think for right now Im going to leave this as an open post. Got something on your mind, wanna talk about something? Go ahead and post it in the comments and have fun?

I'll be back later tonight to bring you up to date election results as the polls close tonight.
Anybody care to post predictions of who will win? Margin of victory ect.

Happy Voting

P.S,I have been meaning to do this for quite some time
Anybody see a resemblance?

¡Los Hispanos son muy importantes!

To my great delight, Republican Presidential candidates took the stage the University of Miami for debate hosted by Univision, the most watched Spanish language television network in the country. The debate varied on the usually issues, from health care to illegal immigration to the war in Iraq.
The only candidate who refused to go, Tom Tancredo, felt that his fellow Republicans were "pandering" to illegal immigrants.

This train of thought that belongs to Tom Tancredo, sadly, is not isolated only to himself. Many in the party are demonstrating a desire to ignore the Hispanic population all altogether. My biggest fear is that the alienation many in the Republican Party have shown to America's Black community is going to happen again with the Hispanic population in America.

As a Puerto Rican American(i know thats a given since all Puerto Ricans are American), i must say nothing terrifies me more than the thought of the Hispanic community voting overwhelming in support of the Democratic Party (Puerto Ricans have already started to my personal dismay, supporting Democrats 70% of the time. I personally attribute this to most Puerto Ricans being located in the city of New York).

Why do i fear this so much? My parents and I are the only members of our extended family to leave the city of New York. However since i was a child I have been visiting the City two or three times a year. Many of my family is still troubled by the same problems my parents where raised with. Poverty, fear of crime and substandard schools. I have seen first hand the horrors caused by Democratic party's desires to get elected. I have seen how they turned members of my family into state dependents on welfare. I have seen how they deny my family members the right to a good education by pandering to teachers Unions and denying them any kind of school choice. I have seen how they block opportunities for personal advancement, and lie to my people about how Republicans will leave them out in the cold in order to get a vote. I became a Republican when i found out that New York was dominated by Democratic public officials.

I fear so much that Republicans will slip by and not fight for the Hispanic vote, and in turn just send all the Hispanics voters in this country in the hands of the Democratic Party. Republicans deserve better than what Democrats have to offer.

Hispanics understand the unfairness of granting illegal immigrants amnesty after waiting so long to become a member of this country legally. Hispanics need to know that the average Hispanic only receives an average two percent rate of return in their social security check, getting less than whites and blacks. Hispanics want conservatism, but they need it articulated to them first.

Republicans, we can articulate this message to Hispanics. Please, you can be tough on illegal immigration and not be as alienating as Tom Tancredo. Lets show the Hispanic community we care about them, we value them, and want a better future for them.

Why federalism may kill universal health care ( just can it do it in time?)

For those of you who did not know, Massachusetts has recently taken its stab at a plan for universal health care( which by the way, was started by now Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney). The plan forces everyone to have health care or face a penalty, and many can purchase a subsidized health care plan if they so choose. This is intended to help the many poor members of the state who did not have health care already.

Sounds Peachy right?

The problem always goes back to one thing, cost.
The Article explains that the universal health care plan is supposed to bring down prices. The problem comes in with simple economics. The government health insurance companies are supposed to provide health insurance whether or not the person pays, even though were assuming they will pay. Rather than drop them like a private company would, the public sector( tax payers) will just have to pick up the slack, increasing the cost of premiums.

Also, the state creates a subsidized market place which will supposedly fight with insurers and health care providers to bring down the cost. The problem here is that this "bargaining" can only happen with the subsidized health care. The private health care company can do basically whatever it wants ( which by the way is follow the market as it should). So, since the government sponsored health care plans have to compete with the rest of the industry, it is expected that keeping prices down will not be as easy as all that.

While the plan needs health care prices to go up only 5%, it is estimated to go up around 10-12%, making the plan cost more, either to the citizen, or the the tax payer. Even Massachusetts's liberals do not like paying taxes that are to high.

If the effects of this health care plan happen sooner than later, it could prove that government mandated health care wont work as smoothly as democrats would like.

So what does this mean for the rest of the country? Hillary and Edward's plan are in sync with Governor Romney's own plan for health care ( the only difference is Romney does not want it for the country, or else his poll numbers shoot way down). If Republicans can tell Americans of the effects Massachusetts's plan is going to have on the state, and then explain the effect it would have on the country, universal health care may not happen.

The wonderful thing about federalism is it allows all fifty states to experiment with different things. We have the luxury of letting one state fail or succeed before we make our entire nation follow the same plan. Hopefully we can take advantage of federalism one more time, and save our health care system from disaster.

Now a word on Gun control

Hey Guys, sorry I've been gone for so long, its been a crazy couple of weeks but i promise I am back and ready to keep you up to date with more conservative commentary here at The Young Reaganite.

I would like to comment on my most recent poll taken, which asked all of you which part of conservatism you thought was most important? A whooping 56% of you polled felt fiscal conservatism was most important, 25% feeling all three options were necessary, 12% feeling social conservatism is most important, and 6% believing a strong foreign policy is most important.

This personally makes me happy to know. As the next generation of conservatives, i believe it is most important that we cherish the Republcans Party's stances on lower taxes, less spending, responsibility and limited government ( even if the party right now feels its not important).

Sadly now, i must change the subject. Before i continue this post i want to grant my most sincere condolences for the family and friends of those who were gunned down brutally at a Omaha shopping mall.

Many now in the media and on the left are using this as another call for gun control. They claim this was the fault of the gun shop owner, and gun maker, and the state for allowing guns to be bought. In Micheal Moore's movie Bowling for Columbine, he cannot understand why our murder rate is so high, and focuses on what he feels are the root causes of gun violence (i.e. poverty, the NRA, republicans etc.) Many feel if that the crazy bastard in Omaha( i am not using his name because that is exactly what he wanted, to have name recognition), had someone to talk about his feelings and if he could not buy the gun (which i bet was not purchased anyway), such tragedies could be avoided.

But does gun control work? All signs (and statistics) point to no, but liberal hysteria and fear of guns makes them ignore these important facts, such as

`New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as "the most stringent gun law" in the nation in 1966; two years later, the murder rate was up 46% and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled.
`Among the 15 states with the highest homicide rates, 10 have restrictive or very restrictive gun laws
'In England, since its ban on personal firearms, the number of people injured by firearms in England and Wales has more than doubled, despite a massive increase in the number of police personnel, as well as a rise in violent crime, both non-gun and gun related

The problem with gun control laws is that the people who would obey these anti gun laws, are not the ones who go around shooting up malls. Criminals, those people who commit crimes, will get there hands on a guns because they will not obey the law, as there name implies (sorry for reminding you what a criminal is, but I am hoping maybe, just maybe a liberal might stumble by and get the message) . I cant image the little sign on the door to the mall saying "no guns allowed" really made this kid think "gee, maybe I should turn around and not kill these people, the sign says no guns after all."

In Virginia, we have a policy where concealed carry is allowed, and we go the movies, to restaurants and many other places where the people walking around us have guns. I might seem scary, but there have been many instances where lives have been saved, because the evil conservative with his gun was able to stop a murder on the spot with out waiting for police. The founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they added the second amendment to the Constitution. Facts, not emotions, should govern our laws in regard to guns.

As Ronald Reagan put it, "I do not not believe in a government that protects us from ourselves." The best way to grant security for our family and ourselves, is for us as Americans to be the first line of defense against danger.

Sorry liberals, you just have no case this time.