Thanks,

Bill Hennessy

In his roles at Freeman and the Missouri Chamber, Beshore advocates for Obamacare Medicaid Expansion in Missouri.

This information, via 24th State, may explain why Lance Beshore and Catherine Hanaway reneged on their support of Ed Martin to replace Lance on the GOP rules committee.

Medicaid Expansion Is The Poison Apple of Republican Politics

When the Obama administration dangled money before the Missouri Chamber’s eyes, they lit up like a smack addict in a shooting gallery. Medicaid Expansion is a short-term windfall for hospital owners and long-term fiscal nightmare for taxpayers. (Click here to learn what you can do about Medicaid Expansion in Missouri.)

The Obama scheme offers states 100% funding of Medicaid Expansion for 3 years, and phases out the payments over time. Then the state gets stuck with the bill. The federal money comes from young workers by taxing future income to pay the debt on federal money.

Beshore and his Missouri Chamber cronies are trying to transfer wealth from children to their grandparents.  Money can corrupt.

Beshore Changed His Mind, But Why Is Hanaway Going Along

In January, according to sources, Beshore decided not to seek a fourth term on the GOP rules committee, and Ed Martin was tapped to replace him. Catherine Hanaway, Beshore, and Martin agreed to the change by email and forwarded the agreement to the RNC.  I have not seen the email, but I have spoken to two people who have.

The RNC later decided they needed a signed statement from all three. Beshore refused to sign. According to friends, Hanaway said she won’t kick Beshore off the rules committee, despite the fact that agreed to leave last month.

And that’s where we stand, with Beshore and Hanaway apparently abandoning the grassroots for the cronies.

Looks like Obama’s strategy of turning Republicans into crony capitalists and pitting them against grassroots conservatives is working.

Now go read Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business to learn about business people and principles we can admire.

But first, contact your Missouri Legislators and them to thwart Beshore’s plan.

She sneaks out of bed at 4:45 every morning. No one else is up. No one’s watching her. At that hour, she can do whatever she wants without consequence.

She sneaks downstairs and puts on her make-up in front of the TV. She also encrypts mysterious lesson plans into a little black book. Names and numbers. Goals and strategies. Like a KGB agent plotting a mission to flip a Navy Radioman.

At some point, she eats breakfast and creeps back upstairs to do her hair and get dressed.

Yeah, it’s 14 degrees out, but this teacher’s on a mission. She fires up her Jeep and backs out of the driveway at 6:25. She’s packing her lunch and books and papers and a plot. A plot no one’s telling you about.

That plot’s what’s so threatening to America.

See, there are kids who don’t think as straight as your kids. They struggle. They’re vulnerable.

This teachers knows who they are. She knows their weaknesses and their strengths. She knows how to get into their heads and plant subversive ideas. And she’s really damn good at it.

So these kids who’ve been pre-selected for failure get these ideas in their heads that upset the plan. They start scoring better on secret little tests, so the teacher gives them bigger tests.

They go from 50 to 74 in just a year. Plus they get along better with other kids.

Kids who should be ashamed of their flaws instead grin those obnoxious, gapped babytooth-missingtooth-grownuptooth-grins because, for the first times in their lives, they scored with their grade level.

That’s how dangerous this teacher is.

Now the question is: what the hell do we do about her?

We spent our adult lives vilifying the evil Public School Teacher. We molded caricatures of these creatures sure to rally public sentiment against their nasty breed. We developed narratives – complete with pathetic victims — designed to make the kindest heart turn to stone when confronted with The Teacher.

And these evil teachers, shrewd as they are, ignored our work and went on trying to turn little, predictable failures into happy people with meaningful lives.

Bastards!

But we have hope. In every district there’s one or two crappy teachers—imposters, really. People who use the classroom to advance personal political agendas and hold back the smart kids. Just like there’s Navy sailors who sell secrets to the Soviets and priests who diddle little boys and CEOs who hide debt and lie about revenue. At least we can take solace in the knowledge that not all teachers are heroes.

Reality Check

For conservatives, ragging on teachers, blaming them for our stupid kids, is a sport. Yes, the teachers’ unions are working to undermine America. But so are 4 out of 5 Fortune 500 CEOs.  Do you really think the CEO of GE gives a crap if America remains the world’s strongest economy? Eighty percent of Fortune 500 CFOs would, in their words, destroy shareholder value in order to meet Wall Street’s quarterly expectations. And we’re demonizing teachers?

Teachers are not their unions. From kindergarten to 49-years-old, all but a couple teachers I’ve ever met live and die for their kids.  And I bet I’ve met more than you have.  (For one thing, I was in college for 32 years.) Sure, the Department of Education has been a disaster for learning, but teachers didn’t create the DoE. Jimmy Carter and Congress did. And Ronald Reagan didn’t kill it as he promised.

Here’s What It’s Like To Be Married To A Teacher

Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been driving down the highway wishing my wife would just fucking quit teaching so I didn’t have to hear about her students?  I mean, she married ME, not THEM, but even on Valentine’s Day the only thing she talks about is how this one fifth-grader is mentoring kindergarteners and that one is reading at grade level and another one hasn’t been suspended in a year.

So I ask you: who’s the selfish, angry, greedy bastard in all of this? The teacher who lives and dies for her students, or the Tea Party “leader” who’s sick of hearing about her damn kids?

If you think Bill Hennessy works for America’s future, you’re wrong. It’s his wife. A teacher. And as much as I love her, I’m afraid, in that regard, she’s not an exception. That’s the way teachers are.

Happy Valentine’s Day, baby. A little late, but that’s because I didn’t pay attention to Sr. Ann Gregory when she tried to teach me about calendars in second grade.

My fault, not hers.

The Missouri Chambermaids of Cronyism

Here’s the simple truth: the Missouri Chamber of Commerce is not conservative. It does not exist to advance limited government and fiscal responsibility and free enterprise capitalism. The Missouri Chamber of Commerce has become convinced that it must lie down before government and beg for scraps from the federal table. Like good men and women who go astray once elected to Congress, many business leaders need our help in reminding them that government is not the solution to their problems; government is their problem.

Decades of government coercion have driven many business people away from the idea of freedom toward a sick dependence on government. That behavior is called “crony capitalism,” and it’s as destructive to free enterprise as is socialism. Read what Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey writes about crony capitalism in his fabulous new book, Conscious Capitalism:

Crony capitalists and governments have become locked in an unholy embrace, elevating the narrow, self-serving interests of the few over the well-being of the many. They use the coercive power of government to secure advantages not enjoyed by others: regulations that favor them but hinder competitors, laws that prevent market entry, and government-sanctioned cartels.

While free-enterprise capitalism is inherently virtuous and vitally necessary for democracy and prosperity, crony capitalism is intrinsically unethical and poses a grave threat to our freedom and well-being. Unfortunately, our current system has the effect of corrupting many honorable businesspeople, pushing them into becoming reluctant crony capitalists as a matter of survival. [emphasis added]

Mackey, John; Sisodia, Rajendra (2012-12-25). Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business (Kindle Locations 519-521). Harvard Business Review Press. Kindle Edition.

I urge you to read Conscious Capitalism, which I will review on this blog latter this week.

Unholy Alliance To Take Your Money

Right now, of course, the Obama administration dangles cash before the eyes of states. The name given this bait is “Medicare Expansion.”  Here’s the offer: the federal government will cover the cost of billions of dollars in increased Medicaid coverage for 3 years. After that, states must pick up the tab themselves.

1. If Missouri goes along with funding Obamacare through Medicaid Expansion, state taxes will increase by about $2 billion  half a billion dollars per year in just 4 years.@  And Missouri tax payers, alone, will have to foot that bill.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce, though, sees federal dollars they can stuff in their pockets right now. They refuse to look at the future, refuse to plan, refuse to weigh their freedoms. They simply want money now.

Organized labor and organized management—Prostitutes in Business Suits—are spending millions to pressure Missouri’s legislators to trade your economic future for their immediate gratification. Their legs are spread wide before any Tom, Dick, or Obama with a $1.98 in his pocket. And there is no organized opposition to their carnal quest for cash.

Act Now

1. Write your state rep and state senator.  Make your message short and succinct:  “Do not support Medicaid Expansion in Missouri.”
2. Next, pick one corporate member of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and write to its CEO. Again, be polite and direct. “I will not support your company if you support Medicaid Expansion in Missouri.”
3. Finally, let the world know who you contacted about Medicaid Expansion on twitter, facebook, and blogs.  Include the legislator’s @twitter handle and the hash tag #NoMoMedicaid.

The one man fighting this unholy alliance is Senator John Lamping, but he can’t defeat this Jezebel alone. Fight the prostitutes in business suits. They will thank you someday.

@ Update:  My original figures were wrong–I looked at the wrong state.  Please this Heritage Foundation study for more details.

Daniel Kahneman  is a psychologist who won a Nobel in economics for Prospect Theory, more commonly called Behavioral Economics. In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman describes a cognitive bias that leads people to make the wrong choice on automobiles. But the bias might actually keep gasoline consumption high by fooling people with number.

Say you’re concerned with the amount of gasoline you use. You have a Ford Focus that gets 30 MPG, and a Hummer that gets 12 MPG. You need a huge SUV, but you want to minimize your environmental footprint.

Do you

a) trade in your 30 MPG Focus for a Prius that gets 40 MPG, or

b) trade in your 12 MPG Hummer for an H3 that gets 14 MPG?

(Circle you choice)

Chances are, it feels better to jump up to the 40 MPG Prius. In fact, it looks like a no-brainer. Both the government and environmentalists push us toward 40 MPG choice. But let’s do the math.

First, we have to convert miles per gallon to gallons per mile. The formula is simple: 1/MPG. Then, assume we drive each vehicle 10,000 miles a year. Here’s how the numbers work out:

 

Hummer: 1/12 = 0.0833 GPM * 10,000 = 833.33 Gallons per Year
H3: 1/14 = 0.0714 GPM * 10,000 = 714.28 Gallons per Year
Savings: 119.05 Gallons per Year

Focus: 1/30 = 0.0333 GPM * 10,000 = 333.33 Gallons per Year
Prius: 1/14 = 0.0.25 GPM * 10,000 = 250.00 Gallons per Year
Savings: 83.33 Gallons per Year

If your goal is to reduce gasoline consumption as much as possible, trade in the Hummer for the H3. But it still won’t feel right. Going from a Hummer to a Prius, of course, would be the biggest possible savings of 583 gallons per year, or $1954 at $3.35 per gallon. But people resist drastic changes. You’re more likely to entice a Hummer driver to make the switch to brand new H3.

It might sound counterintuitive, but just because gas prices are high doesn’t mean it’s the right time to trade in that SUV for a high-mpg vehicle, Wiesenfelder says. When fuel costs are high, the demand and price for efficient vehicles goes up. Conversely, demand for gas-guzzling SUVs goes down, and their trade-in values fall.

“It’s a romantic notion to drop your SUV for a Prius, but you’ve got to do the math,” says Wiesenfelder. [source]

Advocates count on people to be lazy and take the obvious choice.  As we’ve seen here, though, the obvious choice isn’t always the best choice. Remember this whenever you hear the government talk about obvious, no-brainer choices. Chances are, it’s a lie.

Roy Blunt and all six Republican members of Congress from Missouri lobbied the new state committee over the past few weeks to block Ed and retain the establishment’s choice, David Cole. Jo Mannies of the St. Louis Beacon wrote:

Cole’s loss appears to be a setback for Missouri’s GOP establishment. U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and all six Missouri Republicans in the U.S. House had signed a letter backing Cole’s re-election.

Martin’s win was seen as a victory for the Missouri GOP’s more conservative factions, including some tea party groups – notably the St. Louis Tea Party, whose founder Bill Hennessy had endorsed Martin.

The victory demonstrates the power of grit—one of Ed Martin’s most valuable qualities. Ed narrowly lost his bid to unseat former Congressman Russ Carnahan in 2010.  In that race, Ed came closer than any Republican in recent memory to taking Missouri’s old 3rd District away from Democrats. Ed’s gritty campaign solidified his standing with grassroots tea partiers.

Grit is the most important factor in success according to human behavioral scientists. As Jonah Lehrer explains:

After analyzing the data, Duckworth discovered the importance of a psychological trait known as grit. In previous papers, Duckworth has demonstrated that grit can be reliably measured with a short survey that measures consistency of passions (e.g., ‘‘I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest’’) and consistency of effort (e.g., ‘‘Setbacks don’t discourage me’’) over time using a 5-point scale. Not surprisingly, those with grit are more single-minded about their goals – they tend to get obsessed with certain activities – and also more likely to persist in the face of struggle and failure. Woody Allen famously declared that “Eighty percent of success is showing up”. Grit is what allows you show up again and again.

 Ed put in the 10,000 hours of practice. His dogged campaigns in 2010 and 2012 gave him the courage and earned him the privilege to show up.

After losing his bid to unseat Attorney General Chris Koster last November, a lot people wanted Ed to give up politics. But Ed’s no quitter. Instead, he rallied his considerable charm and tenacity to take on a role that is well suited to Ed Martin’s skill and experience.

Missouri’s Democrats and even some conservatives mockingly said “Ed  finally won an election.” The Democrats should be very worried that a talent as gritty and popular as Ed Martin now chairs the Missouri GOP. Conservative might want to review Abraham Lincoln’s electoral history before mocking the resilience of a man who never gives up.

Congratulations, also, to Trish Vincent, Auditor Tom Schweich’s chief of staff, elected Chairwoman, or co-chair in today’s PC-speak. And a special congratulations and thanks to Frieda Keogh of Missouri Precinct Project and a new member of the Republican State Committee. Frieda’s efforts to advance grassroots causes and candidates is a gift to Missouri and America.

“Our tax laws were,” Buckley wrote in Four Reforms: A Guide for the Seventies, “designed historically to raise revenue for the operations of government.”  He continues:

Along the way the operations of government inflated in purpose and ambition, evolving from modest Jeffersonian instruments for effecting the safety of the state into the gargantuan instruments of the social perfectionists.

He points out that attempts to cure a social ill through tax code always and everywhere exacerbates the ill and sprouts new seedlings of destruction. For example, the ill-fated luxury tax of the 1990s, which intended to punish conspicuous consumers who spent their hard-earned dollars on boats, planes, and furs, ended up destroying several American industries and displacing tens of thousands of not-so-wealthy workers. The rich, meanwhile, could import luxury items from Latin America, Asia, and Europe, often cheaper than their American equivalent even before the luxury tax took effect.

Here’s a little history of how we got here, and a reiteration of Buckley’s modest proposal of 1973.

At the height Roosevelt’s New Deal, only about 3 million Americans paid any income tax at all. But World War II changed all that. To feed the war machine, Congress broadened the tax base to about 42 million Americans, most of whom viewed their new tax burden as a) worthwhile, b) reasonable, and c) temporary. Most Americans had one or more family members fighting in Europe or the Pacific, and paying a portion of their income to fund the war effort was something of an honor. At the time, there was but a single tax rate paid by all Americans, married or single.

When the war ended, some states created “community property” laws which stated that wives were entitled to half the husband’s income. This led to a change in the tax law which allowed men to deduct alimony payments, which led couples to divorce for the tax advantage, which created scandals as more couples lived openly in sin.

So Congress amended the law again to allow married couples to pay separate taxes which tended to drop them a few rungs on the tax ladder, reducing their overall tax rate.  This caused overall government revenue to drop about the time General Marshall’s plan to rebuild Europe needed funding.

In 1951 then created the unmarried head-of-household allowing single working parents to pay taxes at a lower rate, as if they had a spouse who didn’t work. This perturbed the single taxpayers who wrote the Congressmen (they were almost all men then). 

As Buckley points out, at this point it should have become clear to anyone that “to favor somebody is almost necessarily to discriminate against somebody else.”

The single taxpayer complaints led to more reforms in 1969. Now, single taxpayers could not pay more than 20 percent more than a married taxpayer in the same bracket.  (Confused yet?)  Now, dual-income households in which both husband and wife worked were furious that they were paying more taxes than single people in the same tax bracket. Congress responded, but now couples with children complained that they were paying the same amount as childless couples, discouraging family creation and giving the childless unfair economic advantage.

And on we go, until in the latest fiscal cliff tax cut/increase/pork festival, NASCAR owner get special tax advantage to compensate for their inability to turn right.

So the tax code is now heavier than health man can bench press, the IRS cannot explain what you should pay, and businesses spend as much on tax avoidance as they do on research and development.

It’s time to stop the madness.

While some believe the way to drum up broad support for change is to propose radical elimination of the income tax altogether, scientific investigations of political change reveal that people prefer incremental and evolutionary changes to revolutionary changes.  Therefore, I won’t endorse the Fair Tax, even though I like it better than what Buckley proposed.

His proposal?  A simple flat rate of 15% that applies to all income. No exemptions, no deductions, no brackets.

The flat tax should appeal to Warren Buffett and his ilk, because he and his secretary would pay the same damn rate for a change.  The formula, which I’ve blogged about many times, is stupidly simply: what did you make? Multiply by .15. Send it in. 

True, this would be a tax increase for many people. Sorry. We have a $16 trillion+ national debt to pay down.  When some future president phones into Dave Ramsey to yell “We’re Debt Free!” we can look at reducing the rate.

The biggest social problem this proposal creates is the displacement of thousands of tax workers at H&R Block, Intuit, and the IRS.

I think we can deal with that, though.

The Senate’s been a lost cause for a while, so let’s not even bother with the upper house. Besides, it’s really hard to focus on good fiscal policy while Hooter’s Girls are passing out Bacardi 151 shots, Buffalo wings, and “Welcome 2013” horns in the cloak room.

Over in the House, things looked interesting for a while. Eric Cantor, as the story leaked, wanted to add amendments to the Senate fiscal cliff bill. But, in the end, Boehner convinced 85 Republicans (who are tired of running unopposed in the primary) to join the Democrats in bi-partisan New Year’s present to President Obama. Apparently, everyone who voted for the tax increase and spending binge got a free Obamaphone and tickets to NASCAR for life.

I’m being unfair, actually, by implying that the 85 Republicans who voted “Aye” were paid off. Clearly, these people are too inept to hold out for personal favors. If the bill had required Republican House members to submit to a Tabasco and Thumb Tack enema facing Mecca five times a day, they’d tell you how proud they were to bend over for America’s middle class families.

I’m not right very often, so when I am, I like to, well, gloat.  Here’s what I wrote on December 21, the day after Boehner’s “Plan B” exploded in his hands:

Therefore, the only way the House can pass a fiscal cliff bill is to win a bunch of Democrat votes.  Since Democrats know this, they can hold out for whatever Obama demands.  Boehner, who doesn’t want to get blamed for failing to reach a deal, will go along and he’ll bring enough Republicans to pass it.

Sometimes it sucks to be right. Since I’m on a roll, I might as well keep playing. Here’s my predictions on the results of this bi-partisan work of statesmanship:

• Obama and the Democrats will get full credit for saving 98% of taxpayers (which is like 4% of the adult population) from a tax  increase
• Republicans will get full credit for increasing the deficit by $3.9 trillion (according to the CBO)
• Republicans will also get to claim the 2.9% payroll tax increase that took effect today (2% Social Security, .9% Obamacare Medicaid tax)
• Come March, Obama will get a 2-year debt ceiling moratorium, meaning he can spend as fast as Bernanke can buy debt from Treasury
• And the sequestration will affect only the Department of Defense
• Which will inspire Japan to capitulate to China

When Democrats become the champions of tax cuts and the GOP the goats of deficits spending, the world must be coming to an end. Maybe the Mayans were only a few months off. (Told you you’d need a scorecard.)

Where’s those Hooter’s girls? I need a drink.

I hold these truths to be totally friggin’ obvious, that all drugs are not created equal, that we’ve wasted billions of dollars and millions of lives pursuing a demented “zero tolerance” temperance goal that was Never Going To Happen, that the losses we’ve endured trying stamp out weed have cost American society more than they’ve gained, that among these losses are lives, money, and opportunity. That whenever a policy becomes so destructive of the ends of living free and prospering that even the Dean of American Conservative Intellectualism screams “LEGALIZE IT,” only an idiot would hold propaganda images from Refer Madness as an excuse to support our current marijuana prohibition. That if tomorrow the laws of the federal government and the 48 states still prohibiting possession of a milligram of marijuana were erased and forgotten, the world would go on, America would remain the lone Super Power (with other gaining) and the largest economy in the history of mankind, dogs would continue to chase cats, Angelina Jolie would still be hot, and Rachel Maddow would remain an idiot. To prove this, let Facts about this War On Drugs be submitted to a candid world:

• It costs about $56 billion a year
• It squanders tax revenue from the drugs targeted of about $42 billion (if taxed like alcohol and tobacco)
• It costs governments $98 billion dollars a year in net money—a fine down payment on our umpteen-quadrillion dollar national debt
• It screws up the lives of about 680,000 Americans per year whose only crime was possession of marijuana with no intent to distribute
• It fails to reduce the number of people who try weed, as the usage rate in the USA is identical to usage in Holland where it’s legal
• It rewards organized crime, street gangs, and international drug cartels by creating a black market with inflated prices
• It takes police away from serious crimes like rape, murder, assault, and terrorism
• It has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. (Sorry. That’s such an awesome sentence I had to steal it from TJ.)

Seriously, here’s what Buckley said about conservatives and weed in 2004:

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws aren’t exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating. General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or — exulting in life in the paradigm — committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo? [emphasis added for emphasis]

So, grow up, conservatives, or be ready to lose a lot of tourism money to Colorado and Washington. Pot isn’t a super-addictive poison that gives people super-human strength to kill cops and rape nuns. It’s not H, and it’s not Angel Dust. It’s pot. Unless you’re afraid of people driving too slow and staying out of bar fights, settle down. If pot were legalized, Hostess would still be in business and likely challenging Apple for the highest market cap in history.

If conservatives want to be seen as serious about the real threats to freedom, we better let go of the bogeyman we’ve carried over from the Coolidge administration.

If you do nothing else in 2013, Legalize It.

The Republican Primary season was already well underway. Before a single caucus or vote, though, we pretty much knew that Mitt Romney would win the nomination. He had the entire Republican establishment behind him, including true conservatives who wanted a “safe” candidate.

We know how that worked out.

What might have been had a strong conservative emerged in 2011? What if someone without baggage had prepared years in advance for a run against the weakened, staggering Obama? Truthfully, no Republican candidate met those two simple requirements: acceptable and prepared. Not even the “safe” Romney.

For 2016, we don’t need a middle of the road gay Hispanic Millennial candidate. We need a conservative who can win. That doesn’t mean anyone with a perfect ACU or Heritage score; it means someone with a great record on freedom and fiscal responsibility and government restraint who can charm the (iron) pants of Rachel Maddow and win roof-raising ovations from the America Legion and CPAC.  A candidate who low-information voters feel they know personally, and a candidate who can raise $2 billion without promising anyone anything except to be the best damn leader America can ask for. In short, we need conservatives who people genuinely like:

The Gallup organization has examined the public perception of American presidential candidates since 1960, focusing on the impact of issues, party affiliation, and likeability. From these factors, only likeability has consistently predicted the winning candidate [emphasis added'].

Wiseman, Richard (2009-12-15). 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot (Borzoi Books) (p. 51). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Had such a candidate emerged in 2012, it would have been a very good year.

Obamacare

Raise your hand if you remember that brutally hot day in June when over-eager tweeters jubilantly declared the Supreme Court found Obamacare unconstitutional? As soon as I saw the first such tweet, I though, “better hold on.” 

Imagine if John Roberts didn’t need so badly to be invited to the A-List parties in Washington and New York. Imagine if he’d put the country and his oath of office ahead of his social life.

America might never recover from the damage to liberty done by Obama, the Democrats, and Chief Justice Roberts. And I really mourn for that party that never was.

Odds are that Obama and a Democrat Senate will get to fill two vacancies on the Supreme Court before January 20, 2017. That’s how monumental the 2012 election was.

The Tea Party

The tea party had a very rough year. While it’s easy to blame outside forces, let’s not. Let’s look internally.

I know this won’t be popular with some of you, but I have to be honest here. We lost our focus on three core principles of the movement’s founding: Constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, and federalism. Instead, we let the media, the left, and the religious right take us into territory where the tea prty didn’t belong.  There are plenty of organizations whose primary mission involves social issues. Many of us tea partiers belong to such groups. Fewer grassroots groups focus on preserving idea that governments are formed and animated by the consent of those they govern.

Beyond social issues, too often we gave into the temptation to speak our minds, to get immediate emotional gratification, without thinking about the long term. Too often, me included, we chose to show how smart and how right we were, instead of winning first, then turning our right thinking into right policy.

That lack of discipline cost us dearly. Not only is the tea party movement in danger, but the whole American Experiment is in trouble.

And, while I don’t think rallies will help advance our cause, not having rallies sure as hell didn’t win, either. I think I was wrong about that, and I’ll look at fixing it in 2013.

If tea partiers don’t commit to winning, though, instead of just being right, there’s really not much point in continuing. Had we focused maniacally on winning throughout 2011 and 2012, our memories of 2012 would be a lot brighter, and our hopes for 2013 more possible.

The Republican Party

The tea party’s 2012 was a Super Bowl victory compared to the Republican Party’s epic collapse. Lacking leaders, mission, purpose, goals, strategy, character, and charm, the GOP might not be national party come 2016. The Republican Party tries to win elections using Richard Viguerie’s brilliant direct mail method—send to a list, send again only to those who respond, repeat until you have a short list of people who donate every time you mail them. That’s a genius system for raising money, but it’s a death-trap for elections. The GOP has perfected the art of getting 100% turnout from a shrinking base of aging voters, and it shows no signs of willingness to change.

With establishment squishes running the party from top to bottom, I expect Obama to get just about anything he wants for the next four years. Because the establishment fears the tea party far more than it fears Democrats, getting their attention will be difficult. The Party neither wants nor accepts grassroots support, and I have a hard time asking myself and others to help them, anyway. If there was every a time in which a new party could seize power, it’s right now.

Bill Hennessy

Everything that went wrong in 2012 you can blame on me. I did not have a very good year. I am sorry. I will try to do better in 2013. If I cannot, I will say “thank you” and move onto to something else. I’m not big into losing on principle when I know we can win on principles, as well.

I won’t make a lot of promises, but I will try to get better about one thing: speaking up when I see our movement going astray.  For the past two years, I bit my tongue. A lot. I was afraid that speaking my mind might create fissures we didn’t need.

Well, the fissures came anyway, and we got our asses kicked all over the country.

So I’ll say things that some people won’t like. I hope you will, too. But I’ll also do things that I have less faith in than others. And I’ll be thrilled to be proven wrong.

That’s all for 2012. Tune in tomorrow—it’s a brand new year.