I Always Knew God Had a Sense of Humor

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December 19, 2009 | Comments

Oh those poor climate-concerned diplomats, politicians and dictators. Here they take time out of their busy schedules to make the pilgrimage to Copenhagen to save our lives and the future of our planet from the perils of man-made global warming, and look what happens: record cold and blizzards thwart their noble mission! Our own President and Madam Pelosi had to schedule their carbon-heavy luxury flights to Europe around this pesky snow and wind, only to return stateside to more of the same. Does Mother Nature have no shame?

I sure hope she doesn’t. And God either. Indeed I like to think that God, like so many of us out here in common-sense land, has gotten fed up with the nimrods speaking for him and believing that we mere mortals are somehow more powerful than the beautiful, powerful planet He made. And because I have believed since I was a tiny child that God has a sense of humor, I can’t help but giggle and believe that He has chosen a most eloquent way of expressing his displeasure with those arrogant souls who would deign to use him in this way for their own selfish goals.

Indeed God and Mother Nature have sent you diplomats, politicians and dictators, including the President of the United States and the woman we call the Speaker of the House, an undeniable, unmistakable message. What in record snows in Copenhagen, more of it in DC, January-like temps in the rest of the country and even snow in Australia do they not understand?

Yet still you drone on about the dangers, the melting, the burning, the inequity, the income distribution, the ultimatums –and without a shred of shame in the shrill voices struggling to be heard through the howling blizzard winds that swirl around you.

So, what will it take for our own voices to break through the cones of silence they have erected around themselves? Nothing, I suppose, because they simply are not listening. But we the people are listening. And, despite the rhetoric and propaganda that we can hear with crystalline clarity though the wind and snow, we know this has nothing to do with conservation or rainforests or polar bears. This is about power and control and a dangerous transformation of the fabric and fiber of our great nation. And though their drive to destroy us is downright frightening, we find it hilarious that God has decided to give them a spanking – and such an eloquently vivid spanking, at that. So enjoy the snow and enjoy the frigid climes, oh dense and arrogant ones. I can tell you we certainly are – and without need of embarrassment or manipulation, but always with a clear sense of humor.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Schumer Makes It Official

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December 16, 2009 | Comments

We’ve known all along, especially in the days since the November 2008 election, that our so-called “representatives” in Washington, DC, believe themselves to be “better” than the rest of us peons. That they are above the law or any rules whatsoever (including those outlined in the United States Constitution); that they, by benefit of their inherent superiority, are deserving of royal, first-class treatment; that they are entitled to Cadillac health care for life while they saddle the rest of us with blue pills, rationing and death panels; that they have the right to rob us blind and sentence our children to a lifetime of debt…the list just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…

None of this is what we call a best-kept secret, but this last weekend, as he sat on a plane, waiting to travel home to New York from DC, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made the arrogance of the United States Congress (and by extraction, the current Presidential administration, for which the majority of said Congress carries water), official. When a flight attendant, just doing her job, asked the Senator to turn off his phone before takeoff – as flight attendants ask every passenger – the miffed Senator failed to comply.

When the Senator finally did obey the flight attendant’s repeated instructions, he rewarded her by describing her to his seatmate, fellow Senator Kirstin Gillibrand (D-NY), as a “bitch.” Nice. At least he didn’t bellow, “Do you know who I am!?” (although I wish he had).

Knowing he couldn’t try to deny his faux pas – too many witnesses – Schumer has issued the typical apologies, blah, blah, blah. Don’t know why he bothered, really. He knows full well that he’ll be re-elected by fatally blue New York. Seatmate Gillibrand has offered her own weak statements of support for Schumer, blah, blah, blah, though her days as a New York Senator, Hillary’s appointed replacement, are probably numbered anyway, especially if “America’s Mayor” Rudy decides to oppose her.

So life goes on, just as we might have predicted. Schumer admits publicly his superiority – and suffers none of the consequences or repercussions that would fall upon us inferior peons should we ever deign to defy a flight attendant’s request. I just have to wonder, though: How might the fair Senator have described the flight attendant if “she” had been a “he” – and a gay “he,” at that? Now that would have been a fallout worth watching.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Poet Laureate Gore

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December 8, 2009 | Comments

In his ongoing attempts to evade debating his religion that is global warming/climate change, Al Gore has expanded his evasive efforts into yet another passive arena. He has decided to try his hand at poetry, including in his new book a poem that begins:

One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun

Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea

Predictably heralded by Vanity Fair as “beautiful” and “evocative,” it sounds to me like the scribblings of a self-absorbed, overly dramatic, overwrought 19-year-old girl in a lower-division college poetry class. In fact, I think I wrote this poem myself when I was 19, overwrought, overly dramatic and self-absorbed. And so did all the other 19-year-olds in my lower-division college poetry class.

But no one ever called our writing “beautiful” and “evocative,” even though we, too, peppered our poetry with such powerful words as “fever” and “vapors,” and howled about disappearing continents and acid seas. No, we faced more truthful judgment. Don’t be so overwrought, scolded our prof. So dramatic. So self-absorbed.

Hear that, Al? To paraphrase my college poetry professor: Nix the pretension. Then maybe you’ll win the Nobel prize for Literature, too. Nah, never mind. You’ll probably win it anyway. And maybe another Oscar, as well, when Michael Moore turns your poem into a movie. In the meantime, I’m off to get some Christmas shopping done before the continent disappears.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Where Is NOW?

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November 24, 2009 | Comments

A week ago I posted a piece (“Breast Cancer Test Balloon”) on the new breast cancer guidelines issued by the government panel, the U.S. Department of Preventive Services. Differing drastically from what was previously embraced, the panel announced that women could wait until age 50 to begin mammograms every other year (rather than annual mammograms beginning at age 40), and self examinations, deemed of “no value,” were unnecessary. So sounded the first shot in the government’s attempt to force cost-cutting rationing on to the American people, even if there might be casualties along the way.

I lamented a week ago that I know women who would not be here today had these been the guidelines in place when their cancers began to take hold, and I predicted you knew such women, too. I wondered, as well, how many women the government would deem an acceptable loss. Since thinking of these women, and wondering about the losses, innumerable voices have joined me in anger against this government bombshell, offering en masse a resounding: No way!

We never disappoint each other, do we.

Sure, we have, as predicted, heard from the usual suspects lockstepping in time behind this administration and its agenda – Katie Couric chirping that “sometimes change can actually be healthy,” and some controversial doc on MSNBC barking that sure, it’s rationing but get over it, shut up and suck it up! Level heads, however, have prevailed, from individuals in defense of themselves and the women they love, to such respected organizations as the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, all declaring allegiance to the previous guidelines, because, simply, they save lives.

But conspicuously absent from the fray has been the National Organization for Women. War has essentially been declared on the female gender by an administration hell-bent on socializing and rationing health care, and NOW’s response has been as deafening as the response we heard from them when Bill Clinton was having his way with a young intern. In other words, no response at all. Well, almost none. Just as they defended Bill with such words as “consensual” and “he’s done so much for women outside of the Oval Office,” NOW is practicing the same brand of appeasement here.

In response to the newly released guidelines, NOW is simply rehashing what has been recommended, reporting the new guidelines as news and leaving it at that, the end. Once again they circle their wagons, choosing to protect a democratic administration and forsaking the women who may be harmed by that administration’s success. At the same time, what remains truly deafening is NOW’s apoplectic meltdown over the possibility that publicly funded abortion may be struck (not bloody likely) from the health-care reform bill.

The upshot: NOW has made its choice, and, once again, women lose – this time feminist women as well as non-feminists, because breast cancer makes no such distinctions.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Watching Them Squirm – Part 2

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November 18, 2009 | Comments
I caught Andrea Mitchell and that morning blond on MSNBC this morning. Their subject: Sarah Palin, of course.

They did seem to give it their best effort, and that couldn’t have been easy for them. Surrounded by their male cronies who, wisely, remained pretty quiet, they fought through the twin sneers on their faces, spitting and choking out words that said in effect that yeah, she is selling a bunch of books and yeah, lots of people are lining up to see her, and…yeah…yeah…okay…whatever. Though it seemed elephants were standing on their chests, they did get the words out eventually. Gotta give them credit for that.

But I won’t give them credit for their overall coverage. When they weren’t showing us the people, sometimes thousands of people, lined up to see Sarah and/or buy her book, they turned their cameras on regular people among them who unabashedly gushed that they couldn’t wait to get their hands on the book and read it (because yes, regular people do know how to read, ladies).

On its face, this coverage seemed innocent enough, but we are far too familiar with the sensibilities of those behind that coverage (“consider the source”), revealed in their arrogant commentator smirks. Once again they came at it hobbled by a severe misunderstanding of the regular oh-so-pathetic-and-inferior American people out here, who, frankly, probably weren’t watching them anyway. And again they underestimate us. What they don’t understand, is that when they laugh at Sarah and cackle about her intellect or lack thereof, when they roll their eyes in response to an effusive older woman buying the book in Alaska, or an ebullient gentleman doing the same in Michigan – we know they are actually laughing at us.

 And we don’t really care for that.

While these women — and the men who are afraid not to agree with them — sneer and spit and spin within the confines of their insulated studios, the regular people of America are sending Sarah’s book through the stratosphere in sales and attention. Indeed as we have witnessed since Sarah Palin’s name was introduced as a VP Candidate in 2008, she has clearly driven them insane.

And Sarah just smiles. Unlike shrill Hill, who would spit and cry and screech in the face of adversity (much of it self-made by either herself or her husband), Sarah grins and says bring it on. She is secure in what she believes, she is genuine in her love for America and her people, and she knows that those people, the regular people, won’t be manipulated by threats and tears and talk of doom and gloom.

And that is why the left is running scared. As Shakespeare wrote, “Methinks thou doth protest too much.” Four centuries later, we are witnessing a left wing living those words, telling us with their ear-splitting howls of protest just how terrified they are of Sarah — and, perhaps, by extension, of us.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Watching Them Squirm – Part 1

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November 18, 2009 | Comments

I have always been a comedy nerd, from Lucy to SNL (classic not current) to SCTV to Seinfeld and Curb to live stand-up….you get the drill.  And I have to say that what we are witnessing right now in the reaction of the democratic party and the non-Fox media to the release of Sarah Palin’s book is just about as hilarious as it gets.

Every mention of the word “Sarah,” every glimpse of her image, and they seize up, their eyes bulge, their voices rise to a shriek that makes our ears bleed, and they spin off their chairs like Tasmanian devils. Poor things. They can’t help it, I guess. They have no control over what is a completely involuntary response.

When they finally run out of energy and come down for a landing, panting and sweating and exhausted, they resort to calling her names. She’s a joke. She’s a bimbo. She’s a nobody. She’s a has-been. Yeah, right. Keep telling yourselves that, and maybe it will come true – or at least maybe you’ll convince yourselves of it. Maybe you’ll even get a Sarah of your own someday, but I doubt it.

Just turn on your TV or pick up a paper and you’ll see it. I thought the right’s reaction to Hillary was heated (mine included), but we’ve never seen anything like this. Mass hysteria, is what it is. And they’re not even trying to hide it.

Inspired by the high-falutin’ journalistic precedent set by Wolf Blitzer a few weeks back when he fact-checked a once-in-a-lifetime Obama-negative sketch on Saturday Night Live, the Associated Press enlisted 11 reporters to fact-check Sarah’s book. They found a typo or two and a couple passages easily presented out of context. Time and money well spent on their part. Of course they never bothered with such journalistic nuisances when it came time to vet a presidential candidate from Chicago, but this is far more important.

Newsweek took a stab at premeditated reaction, too, featuring Sarah on its cover with a shot taken of her for a running magazine. Sorry, guys. This lame effort not only degrades your own already-endangered publication, it is a stark and obvious (not to mention pathetic) cry from Time’s and Newsweek’s habit of portraying the President on their covers as a messiah, sometimes with a halo, or at least bathed in a heavenly glow. But then, he is the President that they, like the Associated Press, never bothered to vet.

So let’s wonder for a moment, why all the conniptions over Sarah. Why the magazine covers. Why the Tasmanian spins. Why the spit and fire and screeches. She’s not the President. She’s not the Vice President. She’s not an elected official at all anymore. She’s just some woman that once ran for Vice President and didn’t win. Like Geraldine Ferraro. A former Governor. A mom (a GrizzlyMom). She wrote a book and talked about her life, her family and her experiences, like so many before her have done.

But for the left, she is the most dangerous woman in America.

Acknowledging this, and apparently following the Newsweek school of pathetic journalism, MSNBC raided the been-there/done-that vault and splattered the images of a gun-toting Sarah in a bikini to their tiny audience. Of course we all saw those shots a year ago, and we all know that they were doctored with Photoshop. MSNBC says now that they forgot that. Or, in another account, it was some staffer’s fault. And they’re sorry. Yeah, okay. You didn’t know. You forgot. Thanks for your contribution to the hilarity.

Keep it coming. I’m always up for a good laugh.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Breast Cancer Test Balloon

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November 17, 2009 | Comments

Stop the presses, ladies! And stop those self-examinations. Yesterday a government panel – the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services – which influences Medicare and the insurance industry, announced a change in recommended guidelines for breast cancer prevention practices.

For years now, the American Cancer Society has recommended that women begin annual mammograms at age 40, accompanied by monthly self-examinations at home.

The new guidelines: Begin mammograms at age 50 and repeat every two years. And those self-exams at home? Forget them. In fact, those techniques, said this panel, should not even be taught anymore. Previous recommendations, they claimed, have led to too many false alarms, which lead to too many unnecessary biopsies (and thus, though not officially announced but certainly implied, unnecessary payouts for said biopsies).

While I have yet to hear any official fallout from this, I have conducted my own little fallout myself. I personally know three women whose breast cancer was identified in the early stages – and before they had reached age 50 – because of mammograms and self examination. All three are still with us today, grateful, I’m sure, that they were subject to the previous guidelines, as under this new set, they would be gone. Indeed self-examination, in particular, deemed of “no value” by this panel, was the very key to the survival of a family member of mine. No value, you say? She would beg to differ, and so would we, her family.

But I have a feeling that the survival of the women in my life, and yours, who survived because of genuine preventive practices, is of no concern to this government panel, or any other government panel we are likely to see in the future. Let’s be honest and substitute the phrase “cost-cutting” for the word “preventive” in this task force’s name, and think about what this group is recommending.

What I gleaned from reading the new guidelines is that too few lives are saved by earlier diagnostic intervention. My question back at them, then, would be: So whose lives will we be sacrificing? Will it be mine? My daughter’s? Your daughter’s? Our moms’?

I suppose we should get used to this, though, folks. Perhaps this was simply a test balloon floated to see what kind of response an announcement about restricting proven life-saving diagnostic tests would garner. For months now we have been told that this is the direction we must take in the name of fairness and health-care reform. We have heard plenty about the magical cost-cutting powers of prevention, too, but we apparently have to accept that there will be casualties along the way. Hope and change come with a price, you know.  Yes, they do. But sorry, I’m not buying.

You see, no matter how many lives, how many women, they deem an acceptable loss, it’s too late. I will not accept these guidelines because I know all too well that those previously in place save lives, pure and simple. They saved the lives of women in my life – and I am sure the lives of women in your life, too, women who are with you today because of early mammograms and self-examination.

This panel, and, I suspect, the agenda that drives it, would call our survival stories anecdotal evidence. I would, in turn, call that bean counting. And I would call it unacceptable.

Betsy Siino | Comments

Keep Thinking That Way, Guys!

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November 9, 2009| Comments

It seems that yet again the left has plenty of advice for the GOP.

Ignoring their own plummeting circulations, muckety-mucks at both Time and Newsweek have warned the GOP that they had better get their act together and ignore the nut-job right-wing extremists out there who dare to oppose the President that they – Time and Newsweek – and all their media comrades have worked to so hard to elect and fortify. Joining the chorus – and also in ratings peril — are Katie Couric and her counterparts from the network and (non-Fox) cable news world.

And now we hear from democratic congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who, in addition to blasting the GOP for viewing women as inferior to men, has told POLITICO that strong women like republican congresswoman Michelle Bachmann don’t “attract women to the party….I think they repulse women.”

And that just leaves women like me, and thousands of others like me, laughing our way to the polling booth.

What so many on the left fail to realize – or choose not to realize – is that what has been happening on the right since November, 2008, has nothing to do with the GOP. The issue here is conservatism, which is a belief system, not a party. And yes, conservatives, who can be found in any political party, are currently in the process of informing the GOP that they need to stop acting like liberals. They made this quite clear in last week’s elections, both at the gubernatorial level and at small local elections throughout the country.

But with more and more people nationwide – including those precious independents – identifying themselves as conservatives, this issue is far too frightening for left-wing media and government pundits to address. So they do what they always do: Criticize the GOP and vilify uppity conservative women.

For some reason, they think this tactic works for them. Fine, keep it up, I say. They will probably never recognize that they are simply exposing to us, their opposition, just how desperate and fearful they have become. So yes, keep it up. We love to hear it.   

Simply put, liberal women remain fixated on a victim mentality (without it, they, and all liberals, would be out of a job), and their belief in the inherent despicable and evil natures of men and America. Meanwhile the voices of conservative women are becoming some of the most powerful in the country. Rather than “repulsing” right-minded women – and men, too –women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann and so many others, both in and away from the public eye, are energizing the American spirit, celebrating a conservative power fueled by independence, integrity, creativity and family bonds – and all with a positive outlook and a sense of humor. What sad creatures are the women who would find this “repulsive.”

Though efforts were made to silence them, conservatives, men and women alike, raised their voices during the summer’s town halls, on September 12th, and on election day last week. And it’s only the beginning.

So go on, keep dismissing us as GOP right-wing extremists. But remember: Misidentify your opponent, and you just make that opponent stronger.

Betsy Siino | Comments

220 to 215

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November 7, 2009 | Comments

It’s almost midnight. Less than one hour ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass what many believe (and some hope) will prove to be the first step of the United States of America, the last great hope of man on Earth, toward socialism (and whatever God-forsaken nightmare lies beyond that). They waited until almost midnight on a Saturday when there was very little critical news media on guard to watch and broadcast what they were doing. That was the plan, of course, a plan that itself exposes their own understanding that this was a blatant violation of the wishes of the American people.

Tonight they took a vote to seize even more control of this great nation and her people. Tonight they voted to sentence those people to a nationalized health-care system that promises not only to decimate us and our country financially, but also to destroy the greatest, most innovative, most compassionate health-care system on the planet. But health care was secondary to what they sought to achieve. By controlling health care, they control the people and the most intimate details of their lives. At the same time, those who did the sentencing won’t have to participate in this 2,000-page monstrosity that most haven’t even read. Their Cadillac coverage remains intact. Let us eat cake.

So now, because I am awake at midnight and well aware of what had happened, to every one of those representatives who voted for this abomination, I say:

Tonight you sentenced every child in America to years and years of punishing debt, simply adding to what you have already thrust upon them through similarly despicable acts. In other words, tonight you launched a full-on attack on our children, and, as you would know if you have ever ventured into the wilderness of Montana or Alaska, grizzly families do not take that lightly.

Tonight, dear representative, you attacked our doctors, the best in the world (just ask your dictator friends). Tonight you attacked the medical students and ensured that care will be rationed for all. And yes, tonight you voted to ensure that illegal aliens will receive the health care they deserve for so cleverly defying our laws to enter our country without legal authority. You claim this will not happen. You lie.

Tonight you voted to send those who are elderly, ill and infirm out to pasture – but of course not without benefit of the blue pill.

Tonight you swore publicly your allegiance to a cluster of people who boast in common not only incompetence and a complete lack of professional and real-America experience, but also their admiration for communist and fascist leaders and a belief that America is the root of all evil.

Tonight you stand at your podium post-vote with your plastic smiles and your words of celebration. You stand there laughing at the American people, but you seem a bit nervous, a bit jittery, to me. You know what you did. You know we don’t want this. And all can say is: Be careful what you wish for. You seem to have forgotten that this is America, not Europe or all those other nations you value so much higher than your own. You seem to have forgotten that we don’t roll over and succumb to our government’s every whim. You seem to have forgotten that the vast majority of us believe in our Constitution and the blood that has been shed to preserve our liberty.

And, most puzzling, you seem to have forgotten the election results of only four days ago.

Tonight, dear representative, you confirmed for us all what we already knew: that you will ignore and disregard the will of the people who you were sworn to represent – not to mention the sanctity of a country you were sworn to protect. You confirmed for us all that you will without hesitation ignore and disregard the Constitution of the United States and your fellow Americans, who have in vast and passionate numbers expressed to you their opposition to this bill and their commitment to destroy it.

Indeed with your actions tonight, dear representative, you have ignited that will, that passion and that commitment into an inferno. You have now officially awakened the sleeping giant. Come to think of it, then, dear representative, perhaps we should be thanking you for that.

Betsy Siino | Comments

A Wake-Up Call for the GOP

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November 2, 2009 | Comments

This past weekend Dede Scozzafava, bonafide liberal RINO candidate in upstate New York’s 23rd congressional district, withdrew from her race, ostensibly because she had no chance against bonafide conservative Doug Hoffman. Because she carried an “R” next to her name, the GOP leadership had thrown their support behind her. A big mistake, they know now.

As we know, conservatives haven’t been towing the republican party line of late. While the likes of Newt and Steele were endorsing the “Republican” on the New York 23rd ticket and telling conservative critics of their actions to butt out, conservatives coast to coast were supporting Ms. Scozzafava’s conservative opponent – and putting their money where their endorsements were. Loud-mouthed GrizzlyMoms Sarah and Michele, Fred, Sean, Rush and Laura led the charge, and conservative Mr. Hoffman’s numbers soared. Exit Ms. Sozzafava, who immediately threw her support behind, you guessed it, the liberal democrat.

GOP leader Steele, Newt and too many other party liners are feeling understandably foolish at this point, but are they finally getting the message? What the GOP has failed to recognize is that American conservatism has taken on a life of its own. In the wake of the election of the most radically liberal President in our young history, America’s sleeping giant has awakened and is not at all concerned with party labels.

It appears this sleeping giant embraces the U.S. Constitution and Ronald Reagan’s ideals of American exceptionalism, opportunity and liberty. And it appears said giant has much to teach those GOPers who are now in full-on damage-control mode. First, time to acknowledge what so many of us have known all along: This isn’t about democrats and republicans. This is about liberals and conservatives, liberty and tyranny, fascism and capitalism. For months now the conservatives have smacked down the GOP mainstream in a grand old effort that I personally hope will get the party of Lincoln and Reagan back to the roots of their Grand Old Party.

It’s all part of the very natural progression that began during last summer’s town-hall meetings and September 12’s march on Washington, fueled by angry Americans of all stripes who don’t care to see their country, their Constitution, and their children’s futures forsaken and shredded. The recent events in upstate New York are simply the next organic step in the town-hall/tea-party phenomenon that began last summer.

Contrary to accusations hurled by the mainstream media, none of this was created by party machines, lobbyists or right-wing media. Not possible. This phenomenon springs only from an enviably pure and organic source: the voices and passions of the people themselves, the same source that fostered the founding of our country more than two centuries ago. The voice of the people made it so then and now, and there is a very good chance that despite liberal and GOP efforts to the contrary, it cannot, it will not, be stopped.

We’ve heard plenty of crowing about the tsunami that may await the democrats come election day, 2010. Given the New York shakeup, and similar election upsets that could occur in New Jersey and Virginia tomorrow, the storm could be manifesting earlier than expected. Good thing. This gives the GOP’s more misguided “leaders” plenty of time to correct the temporary insanity that has inexplicably led them to imitate rather than oppose liberal forces — and plenty of time to earn back the trust of voters who have made it clear they are Americans first, party members second. Just listen. The voice of the people will bring us home.

Betsy Siino | Comments