Science says liberals, not conservatives, are psychotic

Turns out liberals are the real authoritarians. A political-science journal that published an oft-cited study claiming conservatives were more likely to show traits associated with “psychoticism” now says it got it wrong. Very wrong.
Read more at the New York Post Read More......

We Lost too many Conservative Luminaries in 2015

For the conservative movement, 2015 started out poorly and continued to be tough all year long. It wasn’t a legislative defeat. It wasn’t political tumult. It was the deaths of too many conservative luminaries who helped build the movement. As conservatives, we need to remember and honor these scholars, because it is all too easy to fall into the fallacy that the movement is defined by what current political candidates say it is. We cannot forget that the conservative movement predates politicians and was, in fact, built by great thinkers.
Read more at National Review Read More......

California Conservatives: Doing Something About Illegal Immigration

“What’s an angry conservative to do?” Kurt Schlicter lamented in his latest Townhall.com piece. I hardly blame the guy. We need fighters, not flighters, men and women of principle who will stand up to Big Everything, and not back down. The Old Guard of the GOP seems content to barely get by, and give in every time funding for an officious institution comes up for reauthorization. US Senator Ted Cruz blasted the leadership in both chambers, outlining how they give up the fight before the conflict begins.So, what’s an angry conservative to do? Stop waiting for someone else, for starters. Then Do something!


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55 Conservative Leaders Release Vision For New Congressional Leadership Letter

Republican leaders have a responsibility to better align their party’s policy stances with founding American principles, the U.S. Constitution, and the will and consent of the American people against the threats facing this nation right now. Congressional leaders represent more than merely the internal majority of their respective chambers. They become national leaders of the entire Republican Party and, when in the majority, the citizens of every state. This is the essence of self-government.


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Boehner and his allies prepare fall battle with conservative GOP critics

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) is bracing for what could be the toughest weeks of his speakership as several dozen conservatives in his party are threatening to topple him unless he is more ferocious with Democrats during the upcoming fiscal showdowns. That internal Republican feud has increased the chances that Washington, for the second time in two years, could stumble into a shutdown of the federal government. Read more at the Washington Post Read More......

Nine in Ten Conservative Activist say "Dump Boehner"

The conservative activist group Citizens United is releasing a new poll of its membership, which surveyed some 4,000 activists across the country. Just two percent approve of the job Congress is doing. More than 90 percent want their Member of Congress to replace current House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)
. “After four and a half years as Speaker, it’s become crystal clear that grassroots conservatives are through being patient with John Boehner,” David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United, said in a release. “Conservatives are clearly ready for new leadership in the U.S. House.”


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New report finds Conservatives demonstrate more self control than Liberals

Findings from three separate studies link a person's political ideology and their self-control performance, with conservatives demonstrating greater self-control than liberals.
In each study, Clarkson says participants who identified as politically conservative consistently showed greater attention regulation and task persistence—hallmark indicators of self-control—and that these effects were independent of participants' gender, race, age, education or income.


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Conservatives Blame GOP Leaders For Not Stopping ‘Fundamental Transformation of America’

Republicans are not keeping the campaign promise they made to voters in 2014 to halt President Obama’s “fundamental transformation of America,” conservative and Tea Party leaders charged in an open letter to Congress on Monday. On April 28, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) cited fast-track trade legislation and a bill requiring congressional review of the administration’s nuclear deal with Iran as the major accomplishments of the GOP-led 114^th Congress so far.


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Beware of counterfeit conservatives groups

In politics, some groups like to masquerade as things they are not, and use downright Orwellian distortions of political terms to make their claims. Voters need to learn to recognize such groups and not be taken in by them. In recent years, moderate and even liberal groups have often tried to pass themselves off as conservative. Eastern North Carolina has seen its share of such behavior.

Read more at the Beaufort Observer Read More......

Conservative Revolt Splits House GOP Group

House conservatives are plotting a mass exodus from the Republican Study Committee as soon as next week over simmering dissatisfaction with the group's direction.

The members have been talking for weeks, and they met Monday night to formalize their plans to institutionalize a competing, invitation-only organization that they see as a real conservative caucus that can push Speaker John Boehner rightward. Once a bastion for the conservative movement, the RSC has strayed too far from its original mission and been co-opted by the same party leaders it is meant to exert pressure upon, the members believe.

Read more at National Journal Read More......

Why Jeb Bush Can’t Bypass Conservatives

Before Jeb Bush announced he was “actively exploring” a presidential bid came news he was just as actively seeking a way to avoid appealing to conservatives. (The Bushies prefer the word “pandering.”)  The would-be King Bush III consulted one of the country’s foremost experts on excelling in the Republican Party without being too conservative: Arizona Sen. John McCain.  “I just said to him, ‘I think if you look back, despite the far right’s complaints, it is the centrist that wins the nomination,’” McCain told Bush, according to The New York Times.

Read more at the Daily Caller Read More......

Target of secret John Doe probe is fighting back and speaking out

MADISON, Wis. — On the eve of the one-year anniversary of sweeping raids in Wisconsin’s politically charged John Doe investigation into conservative activists, Eric O’Keefe, one of the targets of that probe, is going public in a big way.  Speaking at length for the first time O’Keefe, a director of the conservative Wisconsin Club for Growth, tells Wisconsin Reporter he was shocked by the prosecutors’ tactics: predawn, paramilitary-style raids on the homes of conservatives, and the confiscation of their papers and electronic equipment.  “We ran a meticulous political operation; not only did we comply with Wisconsin’s laws — we were over-compliant, as we knew that Kevin Kennedy (director of the state Government Accountability Board) was hostile to WCFG as well as independent political speech in general. So we ran only issue ads — and none pertained to the elections for governor.”

Read more at The Wisconsin Reporter Read More......

No Wonder the IRS Is ‘Losing’ E-mails: It Was Trying to Throw Innocent Conservatives in Jail

Even a small child can connect these dots.

The IRS is announcing the “loss” of mass numbers of e-mails (do they have any computers that don’t crash?) even as the e-mails that do exist are beginning to show the extent of IRS corruption. Let’s take this exchange (previously uncovered by Judicial Watch) between Lois Lerner, the director of exempt organizations at the IRS, and Nikole Flax, then the IRS commissioner’s chief of staff. (To be clear, these are not “low level” employees.)

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Heading Right in Nevada

Ron Paul is not the president. He was never going to be the president. He was never even going to be the Republican party’s 2008 nominee for president. This is not disputed. But it’s also true that his perennial and perennially ill-fated presidential bids changed America’s political topography in ways that East Coast political observers may not yet fully understand.

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The Konservativ Kristallnacht is here

Kristallnacht, literally, "Night of Crystal," is often referred to as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name refers to the wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms which took place on November 9 and 10, 1938, throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia recently occupied by German troops.

Instigated primarily by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA (Sturmabteilungen: literally Assault Detachments, but commonly known as Storm Troopers) and Hitler Youth, Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom—broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence.

Read more at Flopping Aces Read More......

Cuomo: ‘Extreme conservatives … have no place in the state of New York’

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the current “schism” in the state Republican party is a smaller version of the split causing so much damage in Washington, D.C., and that “conservative Republicans … have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

Read more at Capitol Confidential Read More......

Karl Rove and the GOP Socialists

Happy New Year.

It’s war.

While America was celebrating the holidays, the Wall Street Journal ran a page one story the day after Christmas headlined as follows:

GOP, Business Recast Message
Republican Leaders, Allies Aim to Diminish Clout of Most-Conservative Activists

The story said this right up front:

Meanwhile, major donors and advocacy groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, are preparing an aggressive effort to groom and support more centrist Republican candidates for Congress in 2014’s midterm elections.

Translation?

Read more at the American Spectator Read More......

Why Republicans are Abandoning the GOP

While the topic of conservatives potentially abandoning the Republican Party remains on the front burner, a new study has been released that explains why some have already bolted.  The study, commissioned by a conservative market research group, applied “scientific methods of qualitative research” to find out why some Republican-leaning voters are abandoning the GOP. For example, last year Mitt Romney turned out fewer whites, Catholics, and evangelicals than even John McCain did in 2008, and did worse with Mormon voters than George W. Bush did in 2004. To compensate for the loss of a sizable chunk of his base and win the election, Romney would’ve needed an unattainable 72% of that Hispanic vote currently getting so much attention.  After researching a sample of disaffected Republican voters the study drew four conclusions that were strangely missing from RNC Chairman Reince Priebus’ much-hyped “autopsy” that basically any MSNBC commentator could’ve written. I’m sure it was just an accidental oversight on Reince’s part.  1) Voters are tired of “voting for the lesser of two evils.” This was actually true of both conservatives and moderates. These voters were no longer persuaded that supporting a bad Republican candidate over any Democrat was the right thing to do.

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Tribal Politics in the 21st Century

American politics in the 21st century often resembles prehistoric tribalism. As pundits, politicians, or highly engaged citizens posting comments on Facebook or other Internet sites, we beat the drums to say that our side is good and the other side is evil. ✧ Progressives, conservatives, and libertarians each have a mythology in which they are the heroes and the other tribes are villains. Partisans of these three ideologies even speak different languages.  Read more at The American (AEI online magazine)...

This essay is adapted from the e-book “The Three Languages of Politics.” Read More......

Were Republicans Targeted in GM and Chrysler Dealership Closures?

The IRS scandal that revealed targeting of conservative groups by the Treasury Department has reopened speculation that the Obama-orchestrated auto bailouts unfairly targeted Republican-leaning dealerships for closure. Republican Congressmen Mike Kelly (PA) and Jim Renacci (OH) have penned a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew requesting documentation so that an investigation can determine what criteria was used to shutter dealers that appear to have had one thing in common: their political affiliations.   The outrageous behavior of the IRS in targeting non-profit organizations with conservative roots, like the Tea Party, for extra scrutiny came at around the same time that General Motors and Chrysler were being guided through bankruptcy processes by the Treasury Department. Obama's Auto Task Force required that GM and Chrysler close about 2,000 dealerships as part of the restructuring. This job-killing decision came at the same time that the Administration boasted about all the jobs that would be saved by bailing out the industry. The dealership jobs lost were primarily non-union compared to the politically-favored UAW jobs that were to be saved.

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