This site is meant to facilitate the upward flow of information to help our elected officials stay in touch with those they represent. Also as a means to help us (the voters) help our leaders lead.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Politics, Food Fun and Getting Busy

Politics, Food Fun and Getting Busy


Tuesday as usual we had our weekly breakfast “Cozy Conservative Corner” at La Fiesta in downtown Hart at 8am. Peter Konetchy was a welcome guest. He is running in the Republican Primary to be the nominee for US Senate. This has been our 39th consecutive meeting.


The Oceana County Republican Party held it’s monthly meeting at Walker’s Restaurant in Hart Tues August 11 at noon.

With all the craziness and tension in the news the attendance was good. The Agenda was full along with elected officials and candidates.


US Senate Primary Candidate hoping to “Dump Debbie” Peter D. Konetchy was there also and gave a talk. He is a Constitutional Conservative and has been all across our area. He has been campaigning hard for quite awhile now.



Our State Senator Goeff Hansen and State Rep. Jon Bumstead were there giving us a short update on what they are doing and they also fielded questions. Also at our meeting was Becky Griffin our County Clerk and John Hendrixon our Road Commissioner.
Juanito Pierman our Chair moved things along in a timely manner. We also signed up some more volunteers for the Oceana County Republican Party booth at the County Fair. Juanita also got us thinking about the Annual Brat Fry.

We pretty evenly split as to whether to have Presidential Closed Primary vs a Presidential Caucus. This will be voted on at the state level this coming weekend.
This Thursday I am going to the original “Cozy Conservative Corner” in Muskegon. That group has had 164 consecutive meetings. Since I’ve moved to Oceana Co., I haven’t been going regularly to the one in Muskegon. It’ll be nice to see them again.

Later that day I’m marching with Senator Hansen in the North Muskegon Parade. He has another parade on Sat. in Pentwater which will be huge, the next week the parade is in Grant. Parades are fun and good exercise along with free candy. I find it nice to be able to get up close and personnel with the candidates and have a ring side seat to see all the entrants.

If you would like to join us give me a call; Bob Carr 231-728-3455 and I’ll give you details, or call Goeff at 231-342-3772. For that matter Jon Bumstead also needs people to volunteer for the parades and other openings he may have. He told me to have anyone interested call his cell 231-250-0654.

The State GOP is having a training session in Lansing for activists this Fri. and Tom Allison our Oceana Tea Party vice Chair and I are going. So it looks like a busy week.

PS. At the Oceana County Republican meeting I volunteered to take over the Oceana GOP website so I hope that process moves along and I can get the passwords and start putting up timely info. as the election season gears up.

LET’S GET BUSY

Regards, Live Dangerously Be a Conservative

Sunday, August 7, 2011

I Like John Boehner - So Shoot Me

I like John Boehner-so shoot me.

I worked outside at my new house yesterday in the heat doing some landscaping and I cut down and cut up a tree. After a cool refreshing shower I decided to look and see what was available to watch that evening on TV.

I actually sat down and went through the menu and wrote down what shows I wanted to watch in the little time I had. First on the list was the Tigers Royals baseball game. I also found two others that I wanted to see and figured I could switch back and forth. You know the drill. There was one other however that I saw and thought I “should” see. That is the one of which this post is all about.

C Span was featuring 3 consecutive speeches made at an event hosted by The Young America’s Foundation. These three candidates I had voiced support for and had even helped one with a small donation, but I knew very little about them. So I clicked C Span. Once I started watching I was hooked. The Tigers would have to take care of themselves. Besides Justin Verlander was pitching, I felt safe.

Two of these 3 speakers were leading Conservative Senators. The third was a leading Young-Turk from the US House. All three were young. Two were freshmen and the other was on only his second term. These three are becoming the leaders of the Conservative movement in the Senate and House. One has been talked of as a Presidential Candidate in the near future. Another was elected as Chair of the Republican Study Committee; all three were backed by the Tea Party.

-----link Marco Rubio-----
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALHgCL9I8Dk
--------------------------

-----link Jim Jordan-------
http://www.c-span.org/Events/Rep-Jim-Jordan-R-OH-Remarks-on-the-Debt-Ceiling/10737423335-1/
---------------------------

-----link Mike Lee---------
http://c-spanarchives.org/program/LeeR
---------------------------

As many of you know, I respect and admire Speaker of the House John Boehner. One thing I noticed about the three Conservatives above was that they had little if anything bad to say about Boehner. While they all voted against the Debt Ceiling deal they better than most understood the constraints Mr. Boehner was under and respected the job he was doing so they didn’t have to do it. Even Tea Party favorite Mike Lee gave him respect.

Amongst my Conservative and Tea Party friends I am derided and made fun of on the occasions; when I try to share with them, as I have over the years what Congressman John Boehner has argued for. I am usually not taken seriously. The argument against him is centered around two ideas.

1. He is not conservative enough.
2. He has not accomplished anything.

As to not being conservative enough, let me say he has championed conservative bill after conservative bill since before the new crop of Conservatives was elected. He had been fighting in the trenches in the minority for a long time now. I remember when he threw the actual 2500 page Obama Health Care bill on the floor of the Senate in utter frustration of the unopen, untransparent and uninclusive Obama administration that had promised so much openness. When that hit the floor it made a great big bang.

I remember him also setting up alternative plans in the house. Under his direction a health care alternative was created, an energy plan denying the Cap and Trade Obama plan, and other alternatives including a budget. That was as minority leader as Speaker he has seen the passage of a Cut Cap and Balance as a bill.

A year ago August when he was House Minority Leader and the new batch of “Conservative” Freshmen weren’t elected yet, Congressman Boehner gave a talk to the City Club of Cleveland. You should listen to the speech linked below and see if you still think he is a RINO.

-----link-----
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFNnl5eOA0
--------------

If you do still think he’s a RINO, I’ll put you in with the people that now think Chris Christie is one too because of his defense of his appointment to the bench of a person who is of the Islamic faith.

I’ll further put forth the case that you did not listen to either the Boehner or the Christie video.

-----link Christie Video-----
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y83z552NJaw
-----------------------------

Just to tweak your bigotry try hating Zuhdi Jasser of the AIFD (American Islamic for Democracy). I know you probably think he is lying and just looking for a sneaky way for Jihadists to sneak into America.

-----link to AIFD-----
http://www.aifdemocracy.org/about/members.php
----------------------

If you still believe that after reading the site, you either didn’t read it or you are one of the “Crazies” Christie talks about.

BTW you can throw Glenn Beck under the bus also because he likes Zuhdi Jasser.

Back to the Tea Party and John Boehner.

ICaucus a Tea Party Action group based upon selecting Conservative candidates to run for office believes as one of its main axioms that the US Congress derives its power by picking and choosing which pressure group gets a tax break. It is their further contention that this is where corruption of our government is let in the door and why we cannot stop the growth of government.

I extract from Boehners speech from one year ago this line when talking about President Obama and his desire to pick and choose tax breaks.

“Once again – putting government in the position of picking winners and losers and pitting tax payer against tax payer. The more the government takes the less you have to invest in yourself, your family, your community and your business.”
Does not this match up with ICaucus’s position???

It is my view that Conservatives need not attack our own and if we do for the most part it is for vanity reasons.

All of the Conservatives in government believe in the Constitution and therefore believe in government, they just believe in smaller government. They realize for the most part that to create real change in the system they need an overwhelming majority that will vote their way. All three of the above realize also that it is a waste of time cannibalizing their party just out of spite that they cannot get their way. They are working within the system to change it just as the Constitution says.

For them to succeed there needs to be a revolution in 2012 as we had in 2010. We Conservatives need to concentrate on the races that matter. We need to concentrate on getting rid of the candidates that are against us 80% of the time; and quit trying to throw under the bus those who agree with us 80% of the time.

We need to finish the job.

We need to increase our members in the House and most important win the Senate and the Presidency. For those out there who say we cannot do either because we lack a “Super” Presidential Candidate, whose coattails will help us win the Senate; I say read the following articles. Think Bottom Up Politics.

This Presidential and Senate race coming up is too important. According to the following article the Republicans and Democrats each have about 190 electoral votes. There are over 150 in toss up states.

-----lilk-----
http://civicforumpac.com/analysis-prediction/road-to-the-white-house-2012/
--------------

This next article makes a case close to my heart about how big a role Bottom Up Politics can play in the election and is indeed needed for a Republican Presidential Candidate to win.

-----link-----
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/24/2012-u-s-senate-races-could-determine-the-presidency/
--------------

It basically says that to win the Presidential election the candidate needs to win the battleground states listed in the link before. If Republicans run good state candidates and they can win popular support that support will take a less than stellar Republican Presidential Candidate over the top in that particular tossup state.

In other words if the Tea Party gets its act together and stirs up positive support for Senate and House candidates and unleashes its fury at the current Liberal leadership or lack thereof and failed Democrat programs, the voting public will respond and those little coattails when put together will sweep the current President out of office.

We Conservatives need to concentrate on defeating incumbent Democrats. If Conservatives can keep pushing and this happens we will be able to take apart the Liberal legislation before it takes hold. The “Rinos” will then be easier to keep in line due to their smaller number. Then we can jump any conservative legislators who want to become more liberal.

Regards Live Dangerously Be a Conservative

Ps. And as we say in Mi. “Dump Debbie” Senator Debbie Stabenow that is.

PPs. The Tigers won the game and it was closer than expected. The Pennant race is heating up and looking good. Pappa Grande got his 32nd Save.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Senate Race Tightening up.

US Senate race tightening up.
Heckman in, McCulloch out, Hoekstra in, Steele out, Glenn in and from day one Peter Konetchy has been in.
Click on pic to enlarge

The Ocean Tea Party had it’s monthly meeting last night. (8/3/11) A lot was discussed. Our group is coming together, more of our members are becoming involved in what we are doing; although our Vice Chair Tom Allison was out of town.

The previous Monday (two days before our meeting) Our Secretary Andrew Sebolt, and myself, with Kerry and Laura Krentz had our first “Guerilla Marketing” attempt. This was Andy’s Idea. He set it all up. The four of us in about an hour dropped 1/3rd sheet flyers covering 170 people. The flyers simply said we were having a Tea Party meeting with the when and where and who the guest speaker was. Just to help let people know about us. It was free and simple and took an hour. We did that in the Hart area and next time we’ll do it in another area.

We recently came up with some Oceana Tea Party Gear to sell. We now have 3x5’ flags, hats, T shirts, polo shirts and Buttons to go along with our Dump Debbie Buttons and Tea Party Tea. This meeting was the introduction of our gear.

Members Bill and Jeannette Marossey volunteered to be in charge of that. They did a great job and we took in some extra money. Many thanks to them. Pics below




Ted McKissack reported on his progress in regards to the Census Bureau’s Community Survey. Recommending An act of Civil Disobedience is where we are at so far. We hope to finalize a statement and pass it along to other Tea Parties in West Mi. Also I might suggest we pass it on to the Oceana Herald Journal.

I made up and passed out signup sheets to see if other members wanted to get involved. The suggestions were, “Guerilla Marketing”, "Facebook and Tea Party of West Mi. site Maintenance", "Becoming a Precinct Delegate", "Putting up Event Flyers", "Township/County Watchdog groups". Some people volunteered for some of those. I’ll call and get more before next meeting.

With all the news out there; I am feeling that the people are starting to get interested in politics again. However they are definitely not abiding in the politics as we’ve known it. They with the Tea Party’s help will be ready for the next elections.


Our guest speaker was Peter D. Konetchy who is running in the GOP Primary for US Senate. Mr. Konetchy gave a well thought out talk and proved to most of us that once elected he would be a strict Constitutional Congressman. We had over a half hour of Q+A after and he answered all questions. I think everyone came away knowing who Peter is and what he stands for.

Our State Rep. Jon Bumstead was there also and told us to keep our eyes open when the state legislature reconvenes. Now that they laid the groundwork in the previous session, they will get down to cutting regulations and getting rid of all they can which they feel hinders business from coming here and from the ones here from expanding. In other words opening the door for real private sector job creation. If this works and we can free capitalism in this state again I’ll be happy.

The weekly Cozy Conservative Corner which we Conservatives have every Tues morning at 8 am convened at La Fiesta in Downtown Hart. We had a different crowd with 3 of our regulars not there but Jon Bumstead with his aid came along with a township supervisor and a County Road Commissioner. Hey if you want to come, all are welcome. We are Conservatives, not necessarily Republican or Tea Party just conservative and we do like to eat a good breakfast and get snarky about Liberals. Every Tues 8am at La Fiesta. Reservations not needed lol.

The Oceana County Republicans will hold their monthly meeting this Tues 8/9/11 at Noon at Walker’s Restaurant in Hart; again all are welcome. Volunteers are needed there also to man the Oceana County Fair Booth.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Tempest in a Teapot

Tempest in a Teapot



With all the 24/7 nonstop crisis like reporting leading up to the consummation of the “Budget Deal” you would have thought that something momentous had happened.
Well it didn’t at least from a Conservative point of view.

Did Speaker John Boehner stand firm and fight hard enough??? Yes he did, though you may argue that he did so reluctantly, remember these facts.

1. There wasn’t even a budget last year or the year before under the Democrat super majority. Just continuing resolutions.
2. Congress failed under Democratic Control to come up with a Budget. They however seemed to find it easier to over spend without one.
3. Now at least we have a Budget Deal.
4. Again perhaps reluctantly the Speaker listened to the “Tea Party” wing of his party and forced the issue and stood firm. Both he and Cantor took turns walking out on the President and his team which would not budge from their “necessity” of raising taxes.
5. Well taxes weren’t raised.
6. Another thing Boehner brought to the dialogue was the idea of actually balancing the Federal Budget. Perhaps again the Tea Party may have forced the issue. But without Boehner, the idea of a Balanced Budget Amendment would not have made it to the table – let alone make it into the bill.
A. All the States except Vermont have a state mandated Balanced Budget. A recent poll showed that 74% of the people in the country think the Federal Government should have a constitutionally mandated balanced budget. http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/07/21/rel11b.pdf B.
In a Mason Dixon poll May 23-24th even 45% vs 44% of Dems favor BB http://dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/balanced-budget-poll.pdfC. The politicians may not be nonpartisan but on this issue the people seem to be.
7. It is a shame that Boehner wasn’t leading the charge on that one, however he did listen and pick up the fight.

The reason this deal isn’t too exciting to Conservatives is that it really doesn’t cut spending not even the small amount it claims too because of the use of the accounting trick called baseline budgeting, which guarantees increases around 7% a year in the budget. As you and I figure our family budgets, this would amount to a need to cut the federal budget by 1 trillion just to break even.

Now the reason this is a good thing and I’m not picking Boehner’s work apart is that it is a step in the right direction. However small that step may be – it is twice as good as a small step in the wrong direction.

As to the title of my piece, “Tempest in a Teapot”; I chose it because the Tea Party ideology is the pot where all this Tempest was debated in. The parameters started out in the liberal court but were soon being led by conservative thoughts such as no new taxes, cutting spending and a balanced budget amendment. I give credit to the synergy that formed between the speaker and the Tea Party Freshmen along with McConnell and his Freshmen in the Senate.

As a true believer in the Tea Party principles, I am happy with that. The reason I'm happy with that is my belief in another core Tea Party belief that it is We the People that need to step forward and drive the debate not the government. The other reason is that I now have something more to get my hands on. I joined yesterday a new group that is fighting for a Balanced Budget Amendment. The President of it is in Texas and a doctor who is spending his own time and money in this effort to lobby for the passage of a balance budget amendment in Congress. He was not interested in politics before this. The name of the group is Americans for a Balanced Budget Amendment. (ABBA)
-----link-----
http://www.balanceourbudget.com/
--------------
I’ve joined, donated and asked to be the Michigan Director of the group I’m waiting to find out. After talking on the phone with this Doctor I found out that you can join for free, of course donations are welcome. He said that at this point they want people more than money. (My kind of guy)

Another reason for hope that the "Budget Deal" has started the ball rolling.
Here is a link to the House Joint Resolution that is up and running in the House.
----link-----
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj112-1
-------------
The bottom line is that it is, as it has always been up to us “We the People” to elect good representatives and hold their feet to the fire and force them to do what they told us they’d do.

For that there is only the blind balance of reality.

The Teapot has started to whistle. Whether we do anything or not is up to us (it is our right). But one thing is certain we will get what we deserve.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

COUNTER