March 25, 2022
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Kevin McCarthy says in an election you have to ‘tell the American public what would you do if you're going to get the majority.’ So, where is the GOP plan to govern in 2023?
By Robert Romano
“I believe in an election, you should tell the American public what would you do if you're going to get the majority, and we've been culminating that.”
That was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a Fox News interview on March 24 outlining the need to articulate priorities to govern should Congressional Republicans reclaim majorities in the House and/or Senate in the Nov. 2022 Congressional midterms — and that it must be done before the election.
That is absolutely correct. No political party is entitled to victory, and so, to win sustainable majorities, Republicans would still need to make the case to the American people, not merely outlining opposition to the incumbent party — but also telling how, specifically, they would govern.
But the House Republican plan per McCarthy is not ready yet as Republicans meet in House Republican Issues Conference at Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. It’s still “culminating.”
At a press conference outlining the plan on March 23, McCarthy promised: “I believe by the end of the summer you’ll see the complete packages.”
Sure enough, House Republicans’ Commitment to America has not yet been updated on its website for the 2022 elections. It just says, “The Republican Commitment to America” and “Returning soon…”
With just eight months to go before November, and 14 months of the Biden administration already in the rear-view mirror, shouldn’t there be a little more meat on the bone? Why wait five or six months to tell the American people what’s up?
In the Fox News interview, McCarthy certainly outlined nominal opposition to President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats, declaring, “Our party is unified based on these Democrat policies that have created so much damage to America…”
But the plan still appears to fall short on specifics: “We’re going to tell [the American people] to join with us…. If they are concerned about rising prices, we have a plan to stop that. If they are concerned about gasoline, we can make America energy independent. If they’re concerned about their border not being secured, we can secure it. If they are concerned about parents not having a say in their kids’ education, we believe they have a right to that. If they’re concerned about the weakness from the White House, we believe in peace through strength,” McCarthy explained.
Here, McCarthy does a decent job of noting a few of the key issues that poll well with Republicans in the election: rampant inflation, energy security, border security and restoring parental rights in education. But, it’s easy to talk about problems like inflation and the need for energy production when Americans have the highest gasoline prices in history. The real question is: What should be done about those problems?
In short, what will Republicans do, via legislation and oversight, to fight inflation? Or to make America energy independent? Or to secure the border? Specifically.
The real danger is that Republicans may think they can win the November midterms simply by coasting to victory, with little specifics. In midterm elections dating back to 1906 through 2018, the party that occupies the White House usually loses on average 31 seats in the House, and about three seats in the Senate.
If that happens — and with low approval for President Biden and Republicans leading the generic ballot polls by about 3 points, there are reasons to think that’s the case — Republicans could easily reclaim Congress this year by default. But to what end? What will Republicans do next year if they win? Apparently, stay tuned for a few more months.
McCarthy is right about one thing. If you don’t have a plan before the election, you won’t have a mandate to govern after the election.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
The true root of American conservatism
By Pastor Greg Young
Our Founders understood the role that government was to play was to secure the rights of the people. Having broken free from an oppressive authoritarian ruler they wrote out a Constitution, based on a Declaration Of Independence that had outlined what they did not want in a government. They established this United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights to secure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for themselves and their posterity. They also understood that a right granted by men or a group of men could be taken by those same men, but a right granted by God, that was literally a part of who we are could never be taken away and was worth dying for. During their deliberation to produce this Constitution they had reached an impasse. They were tired and they were near surrender on the issue when Benjamin Franklin rose and gave his famous admonition.
Benjamin Franklin Saves America
Mr. President,
The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks in close attendance and in continual reasonings with each other, with different sentiments on almost every question, is melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor.
To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, in Psalm 127:1a, that “Except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this. And I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.
Thus upon meeting several days later the atmosphere had been changed and the formation of the documents upon which this nation stands were formed. I would suggest that the pillars of conservatism in American politics were laid in this speech. I share the entire scripture reference below.
Psalm 127
1{A Song of degrees for Solomon.} Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
2It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
3Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
4As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
5Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
When You Build Your House On Sand
Unfortunately, conservatives in recent memory have not heeded this admonition and wisdom. Below is a common refrain which reflects the very issue to which Franklin was speaking. Its root founded in the present condition of our education, or indoctrination system. A system I address below using the following quote as a point of entry.
Victimization Of Children is Evil
“There are more important things to worry about in this world than giving eight-year-olds access to pornography in the school library. Far more important, wouldn’t you say? “
No, with all due respect, I would not. Sadly, eight year old’s in public school have seen more porn at that age than many of their grandparents. Desensitizing the children through porn and grooming them for sexual predators, PC; minor attracted persons. So, they grow up with no concept of right and wrong, believing murder as the answer to unwanted babies, murder as an answer to old people (Euthanasia) and murder as an answer to settle an argument over whatever they have been told is emotionally important and expedient to them. This is the problem with today’s conservatism. It has no morals. Is God’s priority Russia or China or the threat of a World War? What should conservatives really care about?
Matthew 18:1At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. 6But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
1 Timothy 3:1This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. 2A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; 3Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; 4One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; 5(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) 6Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
It’s Time to Reveal a Secret
For America to lead the world her house needs to be in order. What made America great was the Christian heritage and America’s moral compass. Both Russia and China as well as Islam know that our immorality is what will destroy us from within. That’s why eliminating God, by entering the Seminaries in the 60’s was a top priority of the subversives that stayed behind during the Vietnam War. Removing prayer, the Bible and the pledge of allegiance are key components of the 45 Goals of the Communist Party. Infiltrating the schools, perverting the minds of our children, and traumatizing them so we have no next generation to lead. We are well down that road. Kinsey’s influence on our education system is generations old. Hugh Hefner’s life was held up as some great examples of his contributions to our culture. That should tell you the condition of the soul of America. Are there more important things than to protect and defend the most vulnerable in our own nation so that there is a future generation? The liberal schools know the answer to that, and they know that a morally bankrupt conservative movement that has signed on to the mantra “those are social issues” is no threat to their agenda. If our rights come from God and not man, then shouldn’t we be paying attention to the things He says are important in order to preserve those rights?
Luke 6:39And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? 40The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. 41And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? 42Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
A New Evil Axis Has Formed
In closing let me say that what we are witnessing is the rise of an evil axis, Russia, China and Iran, Putin, Xi and Raisi. All aspire to grow empires and advance their visions of dominance. All have empty, soulless ideologies of death and torture. They are all godless, yes Islam is a godless cult of death and destruction. In fact, they are so ruthless that even the Nazi SS abandoned them in Africa during WWII because their atrocities were too much even for them.
Here in the west, we can hardly conceive or even imagine this kind of evil, yet the atheism that spawns it has made its way into the minds of our children. This is the real battle. There is no power on earth that can repel this kind of evil with its resolve, save the goodness of God revealed in the sons of God, blood bought through Jesus Christ our King, and America was chosen for such a time as this.
The bible reminds us that the Word does not return void but prospers in everything that it is sent out to do. The seed of the Word of God is deep in the soil of America. Blood was spilt on this land to pay for the freedom the Benjamin Franklin spoke of. More blood was spilt in an attempt to obtain that more perfect union in our civil struggle. Still more American blood has been spilt across this globe in the pursuit of stopping despots like the ones we face today.
Finding the Answer For Victory
First, we must put our house in order and that begins by reestablishing the firm foundation of God and Christian virtue in our children. There fore we must loudly declare that America is God’s country and that He is the author of Life, the giver of liberty and the sustainer of happiness. The rights are nonnegotiable and those who would fritter them away are not friends but enemies of our nation. Stop letting them tell you these are “social issues”. These are issues of life and death. We must choose God. We must apply the full measure of the Gospel of Jesus Christ so we can wield the most powerful weapon that we have, the Holy Spirit. SO we may be identified like the mighty men of valor who fought with David on the side of God and Israel. What we have access to wield is a mighty weapon, the Faith of the Son of God. It has been deposited in us and if it were not so mighty why would the enemies work so hard to try to disarm us.
God’s Power Revealed
In 1997 I was in Washington DC for the Promise Keepers million-man prayer rally for America. “Stand in the Gap” it was called and as I traveled on the train from Long Island New York with two friends, Don and Patrick you could feel the power of God at work. As we approached the grounds where the event was being held we encountered protestors who were there standing against the event. I felt the Holy spirit nudging me to have an encounter with them and so I did. They were yelling at those passing by and were surprised when we stopped at their protest area. They were behind a roped in area and the News Camera’s were all focused on this group. None of them wanted to cover the wives of the men who were a block further away and had come out to cheer their husbands on and testify about how great Promise Keepers was and how their husbands had been positively changed.
We spoke to several of them and even got interviewed for a local TV broadcast. They were decidedly against the event and the organization. After a short while one of the individuals we were speaking to came out from behind the barrier and began to walk with us as we were heading to the event. We reached a crosswalk and they were proceeding away from the event and we had to part ways as we were going to the event. Just as the sign said walk and they were going to leave I felt the power of God come over me and in a very gentle manner I placed my hand upon this atheists chest and said “In the name if Jesus Christ I claim your soul” That was it. He looked a little confused but also seemed to be grateful that I cared. There was an elderly couple walking along that had joined the conversation and were quite hostile to our Christian world view. Immediately after I did this, they came unglued. They screamed at me. “What have you done! You have done an evil thing and we are going to report you. This is unfair, you can not do that!” The man I prayed for said not to worry no one was reporting anything and we continued to the event, and they proceeded to cross the street, with the couple still yelling at us. It did not dawn on me at the time, but what was unfair if they were atheists and did not believe in God? Why were they so shaken? I know why, do you? This is my reason for optimism.
Pastor Greg Young is a host on the Chosen Generation Radio Network, and appears with Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning on Mondays and Wednesdays weekly.
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from Townhall.com, Victor Davis Hanson says the American people are ready for a change from the “great reset”:
The real 'reset' is coming
By Victor Davis Hanson
President Joe Biden believes the Ukraine war will mark the start of a "new world order." In the middle of the COVID global pandemic, Klaus Schwab and global elites likewise announced a "great reset."
Accordingly, the nations of the world would have to surrender their sovereignty to an international body of experts. They would enlighten us on taxes, diversity, and green policies.
When former President Donald Trump got elected in 2016, marquee journalists announced partisan reporting would have to displace the old, supposedly disinterested approach to the news.
There is a common theme here.
In normal times progressives worry that they do not have public support for their policies. Only in crises do they feel that the political Left and media can merge to use apocalyptic times to ram through usually unpopular approaches to foreign and domestic problems.
We saw that last year: fleeing from Afghanistan, the embrace of critical race theory, trying to end the filibuster, pack the court, junk the Electoral College, and nationalize voting laws.
These "new orders" and "resets" always entail far bigger government and more unelected, powerful bureaucracies. Elites assume that their radical changes in energy use, media reporting, voting, sovereignty, and racial and ethnic quotas will never quite apply to themselves, the architects of such top-down changes.
So we common folk must quit fossil fuels, but not those who need to use corporate jets. Walls will not mar our borders but will protect the homes of Nancy Pelosi, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates.
Hunter Biden's lost laptop will be declared, by fiat, not news. In contrast, the fake Alfa Bank "collusion" narrative will be national headline news for weeks.
Middle-class lifestyles will be curbed as we are instructed to strive for sustainability and transition to apartment living and mass transit. But the Obamas will still keep their three mansions, and Silicon Valley futurists will insist on exemptions for their yachts.
In truth, we are about to see a radical reset - of the current reset. It will be a different sort of transformation than the elites are expecting and one that they should greatly fear.
The world and the United States are furious over hyperinflation that may soon exceed 10% per year. We will be lucky if it ends only in recession or stagflation, rather than a global depression.
The mess was created by the same apparat who bought into "modern monetary theory." That silly university idea claimed prosperity would follow vastly expanding the money supply, keeping interest rates at de facto zero levels, running huge annual deficits, piling up unsustainable national debt, and subsidizing workers to stay home.
Natural gas and oil costs are now soaring to unsustainable levels - and to the point where the middle class simply will not be able to travel, keep warm in winter, or cool in summer.
Both in Europe and the United States left-wing governments deliberately curbed drilling and non-Russian pipelines. They shut down nuclear power plants and subsidized costly, inefficient solar and wind projects. They ended up not with utopia, but with fuel shortages, high prices, and energy dependency on the world's most repressive regimes.
The woke revolution in the West was supposed to teach us that the "white male"-dominated Western world is toxic. Its origins, ascendence, and current leisure and affluence were supposedly due only to systemic exploitation, racism, and sexism.
Elites introduced cancel culture, doxxing, deplatforming, and social ostracism to shame these supposed exploiters and to destroy their lives and careers.
Few asked how a supposedly noxious West of some 2,500 years duration became the number one destination of millions of global non-Western migrants and offered the greatest degree of global prosperity and freedom for its citizens.
So a reset reckoning is coming - in reaction to the "new orders" championed by Biden and the Davos set.
In the November 2022 midterms, we are likely to see a historic "No!" to the orthodox left-wing agenda that has resulted in unsustainable inflation, unaffordable energy, war, and humiliation abroad, spiraling crime, racial hostility - as well as arrogant defiance from those who deliberately enacted these disastrous policies.
What will replace it is a return to what until recently had worked.
Closed and secure borders with only legal and measured immigration will return. Americans will demand tough police enforcement and deterrent sentencing, and a return to integration and the primacy of individual character rather than separatist fixations on the "color our skin."
The public will continue to tune out of the partisan and mediocre "mainstream" media. We will see greater increased production of oil and natural gas to transition us slowly to a wider variety of energy, strong national defense, and deterrent foreign policies.
The prophets of the new world order sowed the wind and they will soon reap the whirlwind of an angry public worn out by elite incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance.
To view online: https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2022/03/24/the-real-reset-is-coming-n2604976