Arkady's Thoughts

The Republicans are coming, the Republicans are coming!   Everyone hide!   It seems like the impending Republican wave is going to hit America tomorrow evening like a tsunami straight out of hell.  People are cheering and dancing in the street, finally, no more spending, no more Pelosi and no more liberal agenda.  Yeah, not so fast.  Beyond the inevitable frustration that will be the lame-duck session of Congress, there is the little issue of Republicans and their promises.  Actually, there are two issues. Issue number one.   The current Republican leadership is inept.  There, I said it. Inept.  By and large the Boehner, Cantor, Ryan coalition in the House and the McConnell Senate leadership are simply vying for power.  They have openly and publicly declared their contempt for anything that resembles the Tea Party and are already scheming how to take control of the incoming freshmen.  Not that there is anything wrong w...

Purpose The 2010 midterm elections are just around the corner and the energy in the air is frenetic.  People of all ages and experience regard these elections as potentially more important and crucial than the historic 1994 elections and for good reason.  In the past eight years our government has taken a dramatic turn for the worse and exacerbated a direction that has been unfavorable for individual liberty, freedom, choice, expression, opportunity and all the wonderful things that made America the greatest country in the world.  A debate over the beginnings of this sad direction is a tricky one, but looking at the future with some renewed optimism is worth the time and effort. After the 2008 election and the inevitable assumption of power by the most liberal president since FDR along with the likes of Pelosi and Reid, America has entered a new age.  Not the lurch towards European style socialism, but a renewed activism by citizens and a dramatic up-tick i...

With the election only 9 days away emotions are high as another power change is just around the corner.  With hundreds of interesting races it can become a daunting and downright overwhelming to cut through the clutter.   While this post may be more beneficial to do in between elections, with people's attention piqued I am thinking of sharing with you my list of Congress(wo)men fit for office. Now, the criteria here is simple.  As far as I am concerned, the only people that belong in the US House of Representatives are those that uphold the Constitution and either actively try to limit the growth of the Federal government or attempt shrink it.   While each individual's voting record is outside the scope of any one's person capability, one can use an array of important votes in recent history to gauge the effectiveness of a particular member of Congress. Methodology I have used four votes to make my determination and I shall explain my reasoning. 1)   ...

In case you have not heard, Eric Cantor and his Whip staff designed an interesting concept called YouCut .  You log in and then cast votes on what you want to cut from the Federal budget.  Each week several options are presented.  Descriptions are provided and the estimated savings amount is presented.   While some of the issues are minor and have no apparent effect on the 13.7 Trillion dollar deficit, some issues carry a moral message.  For instance in one week, Republicans proposed to freeze pay of all federal salaries.  Will this save a ton of money?  Probably not, but it is an outreach by our representatives and a symbolic gesture that we are going through the financial crisis together. In the third week, a far more fascinating and potentially fiscally instrumental change was proposed.  The possibility to reform Fannie/Freddie and stem the bleeding.  Ideally we would see the completely dissolution of these organizations and ...

Everyone who has followed the housing collapse and ever heard Barney insult his constituents is watching this race very intently, perhaps too intently.  This smacks a bit of the frenzy and frothing we felt in January when Scott Brown pulled the upset, but Brown's election was supposed to stop ObamaCare and had deep symbolic meaning as it was Teddy's old seat.  This time, we have a general election with hundreds of interesting Senate and House races going around the country, yet several premier conservative websites (HotAir.com, RedState) have already run multiple unique posts covering this race. Three of the posts specifically encouraged readers to send donations to Bielat.  There are two possible explanations.  One is that Sean Bielat is a fantastic candidate and supporting him takes precedence over other equally worthy candidates.  Even though Hudak challenging Tierney and Lamb challenging McGovern is just as important as their votes and socialis...

The fate of the soon-to-expire Bush cuts remain in limbo as Congress was unable to reach a partisan solution to America's fiscal problem before breaking for a much needed recess.  By and large the debate boils down to two simple arguments.  One side argues that letting the cuts expire is tantamount to a tax hike, something that will cripple an already fragile American economy.  The other side argues if we extend the tax cuts then our deficit problems will mount and exacerbate an already critical situation.  Who is right? In short, both "solutions" are incorrect even if they correctly illustrate the consequences.  The Democrats just want to get back to the same tax levels as the Clinton years and the Republicans cling to the one economic concept they have learned - tax hikes stifle economic growth.  Yet both seem to forget that spending was substantially lower ten years ago before the tax cuts were implemented.   How much lower? The projected...

This miserable little toad is absolutely incredible.   Despite his immense intelligence and political prowess what Rove is doing right now is truly mind boggling. (Video below) Initially Rove spoke out against Christine O'Donnell in Delaware while predicting her loss, fine he is entitled. But then continued his animosity towards her on Hannity on the night O'Donnel crushed Mike Castle. Of course by speaking out against the better candidate Rove implicitly endorses the liberal Republican and the establishment instead of someone who pledged to stem the ever expanding federal government.  Rove right now has positioned himself in a manner that places him completely out of touch with the constituency that he supposedly is trying to represent. See, one could certainly forgive him backing Castle because many power hungry Republicans are still hell bent on winning and are willing to trade in values, principles, first-borns and souls to achieve that goal.  What is entir...

Well yesterday shook some things up, eh?  From my vantage point tempers were running wild across the Internet and within the GOP ranks.  Some of the responses were not so much because the veteran Mike Castle was upset and upset badly, but because the quality of the candidate leaves much to be desired. Christine O'Donnell by all measures is not a quality candidate and in some cases has been deemed unelectable.  Perhaps that is so, but one must really examine things from a more objective and simplistic fashion.  Taking everything at face value, considering the fact that O'Donnell is a poor candidate, considering that she may very well lose to Coons in November - she still won! She won, because Delaware Republicans were given a choice.  On one hand they had the establishment choice, status quo Republican Mike Castle, as liberal as a Republican can be yet a Republican poised to win in November and on the other hand they had O'Donnell, a candidate wit...

Things are getting mighty interesting in the race to fill Joe Biden's seat.  Conservative Christine O'Donnell is now capable of defeating Mike Castle in tomorrow' primary and according to PPP is actually in the lead !  This particular race has generated a lot of heated debate and arguments over the correct strategy going into November. In a nutshell, here is the situation.  Mike Castle is as probably as liberal as it gets and has the votes plus the ratings to confirm this accusation (cap and trade, stimulus, pork).  He is so liberal that calling him a RINO would probably boost his image among rank-and-file Republicans.  Christine O'Donnell, despite being a raging social conservative is strutting her fiscal conservatism and has gotten the endorsements of Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin. Here is the rub, in the latest Rasmussen poll it would appear that Castle has a very formidable lead against the Democrat Coons while O'Donnel is significantly behind.  Presu...

There is something oddly perverse and disgusting about this display as the House Democrats narrowly pass a 1.9 trillion dollar increase to lift our debt ceiling.  No Republican and a handful of Democrats voted against raising the limit, but it passed 217-212.  Even with the understanding that the only way our country can survive is to roll our debt over, why would anyone in the right mind cheer for this?  What is there to celebrate over further enslaving future generations over mistakes made today?  Mistakes that should never have happened and opportunities to fix and reverse requiring just a bit of bravery and responsibility.   Republicans have completely blew it over several decades in acting as the party of fiscal responsibility, but the Democrats have completely lost all shame and rationale.  Instead of humbly and apologetically passing a bill to extend our bankrupt country our representatives cheer knowing they bought themselves a few more month...

This vote split among party lines, 60-40 to increase our federal debt limit to 14.3 trillion.  This really begs the question as to why something like this is split among party ideologies.   Regardless of whether you are a liberal or conservative, is it not obvious that the number one issue poised to destroy this country is our debt?  Is it not further obvious that decreasing this debt should be the most important agenda and spending cuts to neutralize the deficit is the only sensible thing to do?   Sometimes I fail to see the difference between Republicans and Democrats, yet today the difference is quite profound.  When the GOP acts as a minority party they can really make a loud statement and the statement today is this:  Republicans are the only party of fiscal sanity.  Fundamentally this is not true as they spend and expand government as well as the Democrats, but today it is quite obvious and it should enrage all sensible liberal A...

This may be a bit early for the "told you so"s as people are still celebrating their 41st vote, but come on folks, I told you so .  Brown told WBUR today that he plans to meet with our governor and urge the release of federal stimulus money, the same 787 billion stimulus money that has turned into a gigantic boondoggle.   He also plans on meeting with Gov. Deval Patrick on Thursday, and said he will urge the governor to speed up the release of federal stimulus dollars. Predictably the states have been somewhat slow at spending the stimulus money, but we have been absolutely swarmed with evidence that the money has been badly mismanaged.  In fact, it got so bad that the liberal Boston Globe ran a piece highlighting some of the disasters.  Trust me, if the Globe went so far as to bash the product of Obama's first legislative win, then you better believe there is something wrong with it.  So while Marco Rubio in Florida is using the fact that Charlie C...

As the Brown supporters run amok in Massachusetts comparing yesterday's election to the battle of Lexington and Concord, Democrats in Washington are scheming.  Indeed, some of the rhetoric has dramatically changed from a full blown liberal charge to a more thoughtful and amicable tone.  While some have proudly declared ObamaCare deceased, I think otherwise and find this new tone troubling.  Allow me to share with you why a Brown victory may have very unintended consequences. As discussed earlier, I objected to supporting Brown for the sole reason of stopping ObamaCare because I refused to believe that six months of negotiations would be flushed down the toilet.  If he were just a slightly  better candidate and had some semblance of Constitutional thought in him I would have gladly given my support, but as a candidate he was and still is more liberal than McCain.  My main point at the time was that ObamaCare would pass as is and indeed still favor that o...

Not too bad on the prediction , eh folks?  I am a bit bummed out that my candidate of choice failed to get my predicted 3%, but Joe Kennedy ran to the best of his abilities and passionately argued for small government.  I applaud him for that and hopefully the 22,000 people who cast their votes will have their voices heard at some point in the future.  So now what? Let's go over the good.  First of all, as discussed previously some liberals are probably on the verge of a mental breakdown.  Always good.  It looks like their prediction for the collapse of the GOP has proven to be a bit premature, as this piece from Time aptly suggests:  Republicans in Distress: Is the Party Over ? So are the Republicans going extinct? And can the death march be stopped? The Washington critiques of the Republican Party as powerless, leaderless and rudderless — the new Donner party — are not very illuminating. Nothing would make Time happier than one party rule....

There has been a wave of videos modeled after the now notorious America Rising theme and their popularity is growing.  It must be the music in combination with rapid image rotation, because you could literally make any video popular. If you use this formula and stick pictures of zebras, unicorns and Teletubbies while threatening a revolution - people will cheer and run to the nearest gun store. This video however is just embarrassing and indicative that a mental plague has afflicted Massachusetts.  Most of us were mortified one year ago at the rumbling Obama train.  We were scared to see so many people move lockstep like sheep and support a man for reasons they could not explain.  We kept hearing the muffled chant of "yes we can" and "change and hope", but could not extract any information out of the unfortunate zombies awestruck by the Deity known as Obama. We have on our hands a similar phenomena, but it is happening to the ideologically opposing demographic....

Check this video out!  Apparently it is being hunted down and like a persistent gnat keeps reappearing all over the Internet.  When will people learn that once on the net always on the net?  The video is powerful indeed (mostly the music) and tragic at the same time.  It first starts off suggesting that the creators were Obama supporters -something about trust and hope and change.  Now they feel betrayed.    My initial question to these people, what potent drug were you smoking/snorting/injecting during the 2008 campaign?  Obama made it very clear that he was the closest thing to Socialism that we have ever seen and you voted for him anyway!   Now you make angry videos and promise a revolution in these coming elections?   Who ever you are, do us a giant favor and stay home!  If you were too stupid to understand what Obama was going to do, then you are still too stupid to understand who to vote for.  Stay home and re...

An excellent video I wanted to share you.  Although I was patiently waiting for a "solution" or a dramatic change in tone/color the authors decided to go all the way with this one. What is particularly striking is the fascist tone via the speech and music.  Conformity is indeed requested and if we atttempt to support the third option then we are labeled fringe.  Sure there are primaries in this country, but these primaries are often dominated by the respective party machines.  Oh well, at least someone is talking about it.

This campaign has reached an absolute fever pitch and the atmosphere here in Massachusetts is electric.  I cannot remember the last time we witnessed this kind of mass hysteria over a candidate, oh wait, it was just a year ago when a black president was going to change America once and for all.  Indeed, we have our own mini-Hopenchange rumbling through the state and one emotional radio host have even hijacked Obama's favorite slogans!  Neighbors, extended family members, strangers, homeless people and co-workers are all coming out of the woodwork urging people to vote for Brown and all semblance of debate has been eradicated.  If you think only liberals can blindly worship a candidate, you are sorely mistaken. So what does a Scott Brown victory mean for us Americans? Now I have been no stranger to criticizing Brown and my facts speak for themselves, I have paid the price for going against the establishment so let us consider what the fallout will be as...

Scott Brown, Republican extraordinaire can make political history and shake 200 years of politics to their core.  He can overnight transform his name and become truly the man of the people immortalized as the most selfless, thoughtful and generous man in political history.   He can do all this literally in one day, by dropping out and supporting independent candidate Joe Kennedy!  Like Scott Brown said, this is the people's seat and with the most selfless gesture he can change everything by handing the race to a tea party activist Joe Kennedy.  With Joe's 3-5% support coming from Massachusetts anti-war progressives and small government aficionados Brown's voters and money will give Kennedy enough votes to beat Coakley.   Brown will be able to drive a stake through the two party system as the independent and free thinking man he claims to be and dismantle the Democratic establishment in one swoop.  Overnight the media p...

Below is a video of a very comfortable Joe Kennedy chatting it up with Neil Cavuto.  We should applaud for Fox News and Cavuto in providing an outlet for someone like Joe to speak his mind  while exposing Joe's positions and character.  Considering that our local "conservative" talk radio station WTKK has become Scott Brown's personal podium, this seems only fair.  In general, third party candidates will always be shunned and kicked to the side because the media has recognized a fact that escapes a lot of Americans.  A fact that is paramount to understand if we are to ever escape the shackles of two parties engaged in the most elaborate kabuki dance known to man.  The dance of course attempts to paint the Republicans as the conservative opposition party to the big government spending Democrats.  Hogwash.  Republicans only pretend to be conservatives when they are the minority party, give them a chance to spend and they will put the Democrats to s...