W speaks truth to power and picks a fight we need to have.

The President finally picked a fight that both he and America have needed for four years.

Ever since reelection the President of the United States, a nation at war, simply went about the hard work of winning the war, keeping the economy afloat in the midst of the mess his predecessor left and the inflation in energy costs produced by the liberal’s fanatical opposition to domestic energy production. In so doing, he failed to defend himself from the even more fanatical opposition to everything Bush. The Democrats have engaged in levels of political incivility that was unknown even during Watergate in their attacks on the President.

Today, the gloves came off. President Bush finally stated the obvious about the liberals from the one position where it will he heard.



Take time and read the text as well. This is the most important political argument of our time and we who know how to protect America, usually Republicans, have history and reality on our side.

The Democrats, yelping like the dog that was hit by the shoe, screeched out their offense. Not surprisingly the Democrats can’t really provide any factual or contextual differences between their position, and its logical outcome and that of the British politicians who appeased Hitler. Obama’s language almost mirrors that employed by Neville Chamberlain and the isolationist British Conservatives, and their French and American cousins.

This is not to say that the liberals want the Islamofascists to win but their policies make it far more likely. Weakness has never worked so pound that message down our throats every day until you leave office.

PLEASE DO NOT LET UP MR. PRESIDENT. DON’T MAKE THE SPEECH AND LET THE LIBERAL MEDIA DEFINE THE DEBATE THAT FOLLOWS. WIN THIS LAST CAMPAIGN JUST LIKE RONALD REAGAN!

Postville: A demand for action from Iowa Republicans.

As the story of Postville continues to unfold several obvious truths are now becoming undeniable.

Most importantly, illegal immigration is a social occurrence that directly and immediately affects the state of Iowa. Last year Marshalltown, this year Postville and who knows what else.

Illegal immigration is bad for the communities where it is prevalent. At least one third of little Postville’s population (less than 2300) appears to be there illegally. Think of the burdens imposed on that school district and the taxpayers who fund it.

While such immigration certainly creates new economic opportunities it depresses far more. The Marshalltown experience proves that reliance on illegals depresses wages. Postville paid $5 an hour as the entry wage. Five dollars an hour! Five bucks might be an acceptable wage for a kid washing dishes or mowing lawns, it sure as hell isn’t for adult, full time slaughterhouse jobs, as Sholom Rubashkin is about to discover (assuming the stay in business).

There cannot be any doubt that the Postville employer and union knowingly employed and enrolled hundreds of illegals. This simple fact proves that the problem is not limited the illegals who take jobs but the domestic criminals who provide them. The state of Iowa can’t solve that problem nationally but we can make it damnably unpleasant to be a large scale employer of illegals here in Iowa.

The people of Iowa want and deserve better protection from the many micro and macro evils of illegal employment of illegal aliens. We Republicans need to provide the leadership on this issue, or we don’t deserve to win.

First, we should demand that Gov. Culver reconvene the General Assembly to consider only this issue.

Second, we need to agree on a clear and simple agenda that imposes draconian economic penalties, including forfeiture, on employers who knowingly employ and the unions that knowingly enroll illegal aliens and everyone else who knowingly abets the illegal employment. The individuals who are most culpable should be prosecuted and also heavily fined. We need to stick to this agenda.

Third, we need to eliminate sanctuary cities like Postville. Large scale illegal employment and identity theft can only exist if local elites turn the proverbial blind eye. Postville gets State money. It shouldn’t. We should require all employees of the State of Iowa or any political subdivision to immediately notify the appropriate federal agency (I believe its ICE) whenever that employee learns of the specific existence of an illegal alien working in Iowa.

Fourth, we need to require every Democrat who opposes this agenda pay for it. Knowing what one believes is the first test of leadership, knowing why is the second test. We pass those two. The third leg is persuading others to agree with you. That’s where we usually fail.

Our Senate Leader Ron Wieck has shown leadership on this issue already-now is a chance to drive it home!

Breaking News: Outright Marxism so vast that even Chet couldn’t swallow it.

It looks like Gov. Culver is about to take his first step into the tumultuous waters of statesmanship.

Gov. Culver is going to veto the Marxist union bill that the Gronstal/Murphy/McCarthy Marxist-Leninists crammed down the public’s throat this session.

Keep an eye on this issue next year, after the election. Something tells me that the labor organizers who run the General Assembly will simply sneak socialism in, kind of like the big Democrat lie on SILO.

For now, good job Chet.

He even looks pretty to Barack.

Anyone care to guess what Edwards is really thinking.

..... and then I stumbled across Todd Browning's extras.

The internet gets scary at night.

Postville-America fights back while liberal hearts bleed and brains vanish.

Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of illegal immigration. Americans also overwhelmingly think that immigration laws should be enforced.

The law enforcement officials and judiciary in Iowa’s Northern District have provided the United States with an example when our government actually does what it is supposed to do-enforce laws that protect the population. Today’s DM Register highlights the speed and efficiency with which the legal system can act when properly motivated. The Northern District is lucky to have one of America’s most efficient judges, Chief Judge Linda Reade, to keep the process fast and fair. It is unlikely that the liberal apologists will be able to use procedural tyranny to derail actual justice.

Reading the blogs and hearing the water cooler talk, Republicans and conservatives share TRS's satisfaction at the sight of the G hauling in hundreds of identity thieves (allegedly), who all work in the same town for the same employer. We see the injustice done to the victim of identity theft; the legal foreigner longing to enter the United States legally; the underpaid lawful immigrant or citizen whose wages are depressed by the illegal alien. While the liberal is deaf to the injustice and harm to the victims of the Postville crimes (allegedly), the liberal heart bleeds for the illegal alien (or, put another way, the criminal).

A perfect example is provided by one of the Register’s regular bloggers, David Goodner.



The foregoing Mr. Goodner actually reduced the following thought to writing:

“ICE is herding immigrants like they were cattle into detention centers that were originally designed to hold cattle, they raided elementary schools records before they raided the Postville meatpacking plant, and now they are refusing to allow the press in to verify the so-called "humane" conditions at the holding facility in the name of privacy?”

The gist of Mr. Goodner’s post is a complaint that the Feds served an investigative subpoena,quite a routine act that Goodner characterizes as a “raid” so as to create the image of grade schoolers being held at gun point like Elian Gonzales, which "raid" bespeaks a disregard for “privacy” while refusing to allow the press inside the detention facility because the physical images of persons in federal detention facilities is protected by federal privacy law.

Now we here at TRS would characterize Mr. Goodner’s position as brainless-hence the headline. But maybe Mr. Goodner or his fellow travelers would like to defend themselves. So here are some questions, guys. Art-2000 words or less.

Mr. Goodner, share the legal authority upon which you rely to prioritize the privacy interest of the students and their parents in identification information that the government already possess (you do understand that schools are governmental facilities do you not?) over the public interest in preventing illegal immigration and unlawful employment?

Mr. Goodner, how should the government obtain information about persons who illegally living among us? If not by way of investigative subpoenas then what method of investigation meets your standard of procedural or substantive due process?

Where should the Postville immigrants be held? There’s no room in the local jails? Federal law requires the hearings to be held in the judicial district in which the charges are pending so what do we do with the 390 or so allegedly unlawful immigrants until their criminal status is defined on at least a preliminary basis?

We Republicans cannot allow the alarming infirmity of thought that Goodner substitutes for argument to metastasize into conventional wisdom by the constant repetition of our radical media and academic establishments.

Mo Dowd is on point.

Let’s face it, Maureen Dowd knows how to put the capital “B” in bitch-and she’s proud of it.

The brilliance of the latest episode in Dowd’s weekly attack on Evita bespeaks a charming degree of malevolence. No other kind of personality could have even conceived the pain of either prong of the Clintonian future Mo projects.

Mo, you go girl.

More Monday good news: Mac’s lead grows.

More good news for Monday. Look to the left, the electoral map update for this morning shows Johnny Mac has widened his lead over the Drama by taking the composite lead in Michigan with its 17 Electoral Votes. The Mac Attack leads in states totaling 290 Electoral votes.

We will be updating the Electoral map to the left every couple of days, or as events dictate.

More in the sky isn’t falling category, American trade numbers improve.

The Democrat hopes for a first quarter recession, which they had, of course, claimed was occurring, were dashed on the heels of positive, albeit anemic, growth. We have been trying to engage the Dems in a debate about the real economy. The libs don’t bite much on the bait, however.

It’s not as if we have held the Dems and their liberal running dogs in academia to the generally and traditionally accepted definition of a recession as two consecutive quarters of negative growth (“contraction”). We here at TRS have engaged the Dems on the broader, but less traditional and accepted, definition of two quarters of contraction in any calendar year. Of course, the United States hasn’t even experienced the predicate of that initial contraction so time is running out if they are going to get a recession since the one Bubba left seven and a half years ago.

So let’s start the week with some more good news. It looks like there was a significant and better than expected improvement in the US balance of trade. The improvement in trade, in turn, presages an upward adjustment of first quarter growth figures, pushing us even further from recession.

But the Democrat economic fear mongering is not to be long denied. Even though the real economic data indicates otherwise, you’ll notice that the liberals are now calling the absence of a real recession a “growth recession” in which economic growth is insufficient to prevent unemployment from rising.

The problem with that theory is the actual decline in unemployment from a low 5.1% to an even lower 5% last month.

You’ve got to just love a party that so consistently invests its political so completely in American failure. And you wonder why we call them the party of despair?

Where are the other ten?

My new flag only has fifty stars. Is that consumer fraud or what?

Look on my works ye Mighty and despair..........

Sayeth Ozymandias.

The Party of the People!

Check out this great post over at Maryland’s Brian Griffiths Blog. A great analysis of America’s true political demographics.

Layout Improvements at TRS.

We’ve made a few major layout changes here at TRS.

On the left side you’ll notice the pictures of a few Republican Presidents. Each of those pictures links to Republican fact based news content. The last picture, of President Bush and his cabinet is the timeliest and most current of the feeds. The RNC is missing a huge opportunity in not updating those RSS issue based feeds more frequently. That would certainly help us offset the liberal media echo chamber.

We’ve also consolidated the Republican official websites of interest and deleted them from the more general blog roll below. Please feel free to suggest new Republican sites for inclusion on this list.

Finally, we learned how to install an ongoing news feed from NewsMax that appears as a footer below. We are working on adding the jihadist feed at MSNBC just for balance. Maybe Fox will develop such a technological link or, if they have, that we here at TRS discover how to use it.

Hopefully the new format will prove of benefit to the reader. Thanks again for making the time we spend here worthwhile.

IRLC SPRING FLING-New methods on display and a new orator arrives.

Last Saturday night we here at TRS had the opportunity to attend the Iowa Right to Life Committee’s annual dinner, the Spring Fling. A smash success by all of those involved.

IRLC Executive Secretary Kim Lehman (pictured above) has certainly proven her abilities as a political organizer and lobbyist. Gone are the days when Iowa’s right to life cause was relegated to the fringes of Iowa politics. Kimmy has built a well funded and significant player on the Iowa political scene.

No voter is more reliably Republican than the life voter. While the GOP is hardly a one issue party it never hurts to remember who butters our bread on Election Day. Given the lack of attention the right to life cause has received here in Iowa over the last decade it is remarkable that the pro-life vote has remained as loyal as it has, but it has and we Republicans should damn glad for it.

Kim also demonstrates what can be accomplished if we think outside the box. Kim described a program that seeks to fill every nook and cranny of political speech now occupied by Planned Parenthood, including missions devoted to women’s health and safe alternatives to abortion. The Right to Life Book Sale is a brilliant example of stealing your rivals thunder. Leadership for a new generation is what we are seeing at IRLC and it isn’t coming a day too soon, given our recent electoral woes here in Iowa.

Right to Life also holds an annual oratory contest. The contestants (pictured below) were a collection of bright eyed and bushy tailed young speakers.


TRS and crew sat with the young man who won the 2008 Award (pictured below).

Micah Howe of Garner Iowa did a fabulous job of arguing the pro-life case. Young Mr. Howe was both moving and articulate. Micah apparently has given up on a career of rendering to Caesar in the law courts for rendering elsewhere in the pulpit: too bad for us but good for the ministry. Micah’s on to the national oratory contest where we are sure he is to find himself finishing high on the leader board.

The venue was also fabulous, “The Stadium” banquet room overlooking the Capital. The food was far better than usual banquet fare. Having a family oriented comedian as the entertainment also helps to build good spirit for the happy culture warrior, and people are far more attracted to the happy and optimistic cause than that of the dour complainer.

Kim, Micah and the crew certainly provided a glimpse of what can be accomplished with some conviction, creativity and energy.

The Drama provides nothing but pain in the gas.

Democrat Barack “the Drama” Obama loves to talk about the cost of a gallon of gas. Yes, thanks to the Democrats’ thirty year war on the middle class, the United States now produces about half the oil and gas we did in 1985. During the same time our consumption has increased by over thirty percent.

What is the Democrat solution? Hillary has at least offered to abate the federal gas tax. Obama complained about even that minimal attempt to reduce gas prices.



According to the Drama, the pain at the pump will survive his Administration. So, if you’re voting on gas prices don’t think the Drama has any intention of doing anything to resolve your issue or lower prices.

Part of the Obama fairy tale is his "bipartisan leadership". While there is little evidence in general for such a historical view of the earlier, off Broadway runs of the Drama, there is none whatsoever in energy policy. Barack's last venture into energy policy was S.115.

S.115 was a broad based attack on domestic oil production. So broad based that even Democrat oil magnates like Jay Rockefeller and Teddy Kennedy as well as all 48 other Democrats refused to cosponsor it. Yes, those were the events of January 4, 2007-only one month from the day on which the fairy tale began.

Who you gonna call? NEWS BUSTERS!

We here at TRS found a great site this morning, News Busters. The Busters analyze the news for liberal bias or misstatement. This morning they have a great display of the Drama’s historical deficiencies.

As the Iranian back Hezbollah terror organization launches another civil war in Lebanon, with Iranian backing of course, the first class folks over at News Busters have caught the Drama in a major misstatement about objective American history.

In an attempt to buttress his childlike positions that strong nations negotiate with their enemies as a sort of historical premise, the Drama claimed that FDR, Harry Truman and Jack Kennedy were known for talking with their enemies.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. FDR pursued a no negotiations other than unconditional surrender in WW2. Harry Truman never negotiated with the Soviets, nor even the Chinese or North Koreans personally. Like GWB, FDR knew our friends, and you won't find too many pictures of FDR with Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini or Hideki Tojo.

As for Kennedy’s limited contact with Khrushchev, well let us say that virtually no historian, including Kennedy himself, thought the Vienna summit worked to the American advantage upon its completion.

Obama is engaging in the kind of historical revision that liberals routinely employ in making arguments to the public. More dangerously, this false history is what our children learn in the failing government schools, where liberal indoctrination has replaced real education.

Ron Wieck tackles the contumacious and contemptible IDOT.

Once again, the Culver gang over at the Iowa DOT is showing a complete lack of respect for Iowa statutory and common law.

Today’s DM Register reports that the Iowa Dept. of Transportation has refused to comply with Judge Staskal’s order that public documents be printed in the English language only-as is plainly required by the language of the 2002 law that passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the General Assembly and was signed, and then ignored, by then Governor Tom Vilsack. The Culver Administration is not only breaking the law but doing so for the purpose of diminishing American culture and national unity (there’s that division issue rearing its head again).

This truly shocking level of elitist contempt is pretty bad. Worse yet, the refusal to comply with state law comes from an administration that not two weeks ago proposed raising, yes raising the per gallon tax on gasoline to offset the declining levels of consumption because the DOT was desperate for money.

Our Senate Leader Ron Wieck didn’t let this outrageous display of arrogance, greed and bad judgment go without comment. Early this year Ron assured me that immigration issues were important and would remain a focal point of the Senate agenda.

Ron was good to his word throughout the session. It’s most gratifying to see that Ron’s commitment to preserving our American culture did not adjourn with Senate last month.

Senator Wieck has recognized the importance of this vital intersection between policy and politics, much like Generals Buford and Reynolds recognized the importance of the cross roads town of Gettysburg in the first great culture war we won over the Democrats back when our party was young.

Now, we Republicans have a challenge to rally around Senator Wieck and keep this issue before the public through the use of new and more aggressive tactics in the Culture War. Can we do it?

Gov. Culver promotes his favorite industry.

Gov. Chet Culver went to Fort Madison to sign into law the budget mandates to spend $250 million in new prison construction. Democrats love prison construction. It makes them look tough without having to actually do anything. The prisons create union jobs in the construction process, thereby making them poor investments but, after all, who needs efficiency when you are spending someone else’s money? After construction, the prisons are filled with union employees.

Hagenow for HD 59

Republicans out here in the land of TRS-Clive, and WDM and Windsor Heights as well, will have a chance to support a great young legislator in waiting throughout 2008-Chris Hagenow.

Chris is doing a great job getting out and meeting the voters. He’s got a very attractive and informative website as well. Chris’ website is most informative so I am not going redundantly repeat the bio, etc… here. Please click and study.

Chris doesn’t have the cake walk we usually have in HD59, the Dems are running a tough candidate in this District. If you live out here in HD 59 we need your time and money on the legislature this year. IF we don’t hold this street we are not retaking the Iowa House.

If we don’t retake the House we get more taxes, worse schools, fewer decent jobs and the bizarre anti-family secular socialism that Gov. Culver, and Misters Murphy, McCarthy and Gronstal have forced down our throats the last two years.

Big grab in Iraq.

It looks like Coalition forces grabbed the latest Al-Qeda in Iraq commander, the poor misunderstood Abu Ayyab al-Masri.

If so, this grab is a huge step forward in smashing AQI. While killing Zarwaqai had to be just an awful lot of fun, as was the decapitation of the terror leadership