Tag Archives: Republican Primary

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South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley suspends licenses of two abortion clinics

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South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley

Good news from Life Site News.

Excerpt:

All three of South Carolina’s abortion facilities have violated state law – and Gov. Nikki Haley has issued an order that could close two of them in just over two weeks. And their managers and employees may face criminal charges.

Gov. Nikki Haley announced late Friday afternoon that she had issued Administrative Order of Suspensions against Planned Parenthood of South Atlantic in Columbia and Greenville Women’s Clinic in Greenville and assessed more than $10,000 in fines so far.

The state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) found 27 violations in those two offices – 21 at Planned Parenthood alone.

Nikki Haley is, of course, a Republican governor. There is not much enforcement against abortion clinics in Democrat-dominated states.

Although many Democrats have not seen the Planned Parenthood sting videos, Republicans are different. Although the Republican legislators in the House and Senate are dragging their feet, you can see real action from the governors. I wrote about what governors Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal did already.

What is so frustrating to me about the 2016 election is that so many low-information Republican voters are listening to what Donald Trump says during his media appearances about abortion, while ignoring his longstanding support for abortion. And these are not mere words, there are donations to many Democrat pro-abortion candidates, including many donations to Hillary Clinton.

This Hillary Clinton:

Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood
Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood

Here’s an article from the Washington Post about Trump.

It says:

Abortion

Then: On “Meet The Press” in 1999, Trump said he was “very pro­choice.” “I hate the concept of abortion,” he said. “I hate it. I hate everything it stands for. … but I just believe in choice.”

Now: In an interview with Bloomberg Politics in January, Trump said, “I’m pro­life and I have been pro­life.” He said he believed there should be exceptions in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.

Hillary Clinton

Then: Either Trump or his son donated to Clinton in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2007, he invited her to his 2005 wedding in Florida, where she sat front row, and he’s donated at least $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. He also said in an appearance on the Howard Stern show in the mid­ 2000s that she was a fantastic senator.

Now: On NBC on Wednesday, he called Clinton “the worst secretary of state in the history of our nation” and said she would be “a terrible president.”

Another article from the Washington Post:

Billionaire Donald J. Trump, an early presidential favorite among tea party activists, has a highly unusual history of political contributions for a prospective Republican candidate: He has given most of his money to the other side.

The real estate mogul and “Celebrity Apprentice” host has made more than $1.3 million in donations over the years to candidates nationwide, with 54 percent of the money going to Democrats, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal disclosure records.

Recipients include Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), former Pennsylvania governor Edward G. Rendell, and Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to President Obama who received $50,000 from Trump during his recent run to become Chicago’s mayor, records show. Many of the contributions have been concentrated in New York, Florida and other states where Trump has substantial real estate and casino interests.

Should we really be watching TV in order to find out about a candidate’s positions? Or should we instead be looking at their real-life achievements? Some of the achievements of governors like Scott Walker were multi-year fights. Isn’t it better to pick someone who has fought the left hard on social issues and won victories, rather than someone who just speaks about social issues in sound bites? Trump has no pro-life record, and we cannot afford another 8 years of a pro-abortion president. You cannot know what a person really believes about something by listening to words during an election campaign. Barack Obama promised we could keep our doctors and keep our health plans. Those were lies. I know this is surprising to many Americans, but not everything that a political candidate says on TV is true. Sometimes, you have to put down the remote control and pick up a history book in order to find out where a candidate stands.

News

Fox News debate moderators focused on attention-seeking, not informing voters

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First point, there was record viewership for the second debate.

The Washington Times reports:

The two-hour political extravaganza pulled in 24 million viewers according to initial Nielsen ratings numbers – breaking the all-time record for a non-sports cable event. 

[…]A good comparison here: the largest audience that any debate drew in the 2012 election was 7.6 million. 

[…]And about that coverage on Thursday: Of the two-hour broadcast, the candidates collectively spoke for one hour and eight minutes total. Mr. Trump spoke for 10 minutes, 32 seconds, with Jeb Bush in second place at eight minutes, 32 seconds – this according to University of Minnesota political professor Eric Ostermeier, who tallied it all up with a stop watch and a spreadsheet.

[…]Trump and Bush were the only two candidates who reached — and exceeded — that mark,” the professor adds. “They received more than their equal share of speaking time while the rest of the field was shortchanged.”

In third place was Mike Huckabee at 6:40 followed by Sen. Ted Cruz (6:39), Ohio Gov.John Kasich (6:31), Ben Carson (6:23), Sen. Marco Rubio (6:22), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (6:10), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (5:51), and in last place, Sen. Rand Paul (5:10).

The Fox News moderators spoke for 32 minutes – taking up about a third of the total on-camera dialogue.

The Fox News moderators spoke for 32 minutes. They should have spoken for 10 minutes total, and in fact I saw them say that they only intended to speak for 10 minutes, just after the early debate for second-tier candidates.

Conservative Mark Levin was not please with the Fox News moderators’ performance.

He says:

Lawyer, constitutional scholar, best selling author, and conservative talk radio host Mark Levin, in an interview on theBreitbart News Saturday radio program, expressed outrage at the Thursday night GOP presidential debate hosted by Fox News.

Levin asserted, “I think that we were all duped. The fact of the matter is that this was a ratings gambit.”

[…]Levin claims that “We the people” were overlooked in the debate, and the event became a media spectacle with more emphasis on the show’s moderators than on discussing the important issues that face America.

[…]Bannon observed that the debate reeked of “opposition research” and had a definite “adversarial” tone with the questions they asked Trump and others. Levin agreed and recounted that the question they asked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker about abortion seemed prosecutorial in nature.

It’s not just that the speaking time was unfair, and actually favored the moderators, it’s that the moderators’ questions were almost entirely tabloid-style gotcha questions:

Levin described the debate as a failure to address the two hundred trillion that America faces in unfunded liabilities, the bankruptcy of the Social Security system, the fact that Medicare and Medicaid are on the brink of collapse, that our educational system costs a trillion dollars a year and is a “complete failure,” our immigration policy is a disaster, the EPA is destroying our economic system, and that our Constitution is being undermined. Levin rebuked Fox for wasting time on “pardon the phrase—trumped up stuff. To me it is such an outrage what took place. And it was planned. The questions were planned. I am very troubled by it too.”

I think Megyn Kelly in particular was a lousy moderator, and just approached the debate as a way to attract attention to herself. She was a disgrace. People say Fox News is conservative, but they were anything but conservative during the second debate. They were in it for themselves, and the Republican Party suffered. I might as well have been watching CNN, or even MSNBC.

Anyway with that in find, here are the changes in poll numbers following the debate: (H/T ECM)

Recent post-debate GOP primary poll
Recent post-debate GOP primary poll

Cruz, Fiorina and Carson helped themselves the most, and that’s exactly what I said in my previous post when I declared Fiorina the winner of the first debate, and Cruz and Carson the winners of the second debate.

News

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker draws standing ovations at Freedom Summit in Iowa

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This story is from The Hill.

Excerpt:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) delivered a fiery speech in Iowa on Saturday, wowing the conservative crowd with a passionate argument for small government and his own lengthy resume.

The Wisconsin governor, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, paced the stage as he blasted big government and touted a long list of conservative reforms he’s pushed through in blue Wisconsin.

The governor also showed a rhetorical flourish that’s largely been absent from his previous campaigns, drawing the crowd to its feet multiple times.

“There’s a reason we take a day off to celebrate the 4th of July and not the 15th of April,” he said, almost yelling as his voice grew hoarse. “Because in America we value our independence from the government, not our dependence on it.”

Walker’s speech had something for every element of the activist crowd. The governor touted his three victories over Democrats and recall win as well as his state-level education reforms. Each new policy he helped pass drew cheers: Voter ID laws, education reforms, tax cuts and defunding Planned Parenthood.

The biggest question for Walker as he ramps up for a race is whether he has the fire in the belly and political skills to stand onstage against the other candidates. And in his first major Iowa address, he may have done a lot to dispel notions that he lacks charisma.

When he said he won reelection as Milwaukee County Executive in an area where President Obama won by a two-to-one margin, some in the audience gasped.

“If you get the job done the voters will actually stand up with you,” he said before contrasting his record with Washington’s deadlock.

The preacher’s son also showed a personal side — and spoke in religious terms to thank Iowans who prayed for him as he faced death threats during his fight against the public sector unions, including one that promised to gut his wife “like a deer.”

Walker made sure to establish his Iowa roots — saying he’d lived there until third grade until his father got a job as a minister in Wisconsin — before promising to return “many more times in the future.”

More from a different article from The Hill:

Scott Walker’s stock is soaring after a triumphant return to Iowa.

The Wisconsin Republican governor delivered a pitch-perfect speech to a room packed with influential Hawkeye State conservatives on Saturday, walking them through his robust resume and ideology with a passion that surprised many.

Activists say Walker came out on top after 10 hours of candidate speeches.

“It was a clear Walker victory. He had expectations coming in here, he was on everyone’s shortlist and he had to meet those expectations and I thought he far exceeded them,” said former Iowa Republican Party political director Craig Robinson. “I thought his speech was just perfect, and I thought his delivery was perfect. The delivery really surprised me.”

Walker held his own against Ted Cruz, the event’s other star. While the Texas senator always turns in commanding performances with conservative crowds, the governor next door helped himself the most by making a strong first impression with many Iowa activists who simply knew him from his showdown with the unions.

He offered something for almost every type of conservative, rolling through his record of both social and fiscal accomplishments, drawing big applause by knocking “radical Islamic terrorists” and touting legislation he backed to relax gun control laws and cut taxes.

He spoke about his faith in a natural way, and in one sentence managed to mention that he was both the son of a pastor and had Iowa roots (Walker spent his early years in the state before his dad moved to a church in Wisconsin).

Most importantly, he did it all with a folksy yet fiery delivery that had observers gushing and brought the crowd to their feet.

The biggest question surrounding Walker heading into the weekend is whether his charisma could stack up against the other White House contenders. It was a worry Walker shared — one Republican who talked to him backstage said the governor expressed concern that people would view him as “bland.” But as the strode onstage with his shirt sleeves rolled up and paced about the floor, those worries vanished.

“Walker found a way to talk about himself, talk about the country and talk about Iowa in perfect proportionality, and he did so with a style that was very easy and engaging,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz. “He connected to these people — you could see it.”

[…]But Walker made a big splash in his first Iowa appearance of 2015, stealing the spotlight from his likely foes.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him live and he was tremendous. It was a great speech,” said Sam Clovis, a conservative kingmaker and the GOP’s 2014 nominee for state treasurer. “That was something special.”

Since we are ramping up to the 2016 election, I took some time to list out my 6 favorite candidates for the GOP nomination.

Here they are:

  1. Wisconsin governor Scott Walker
  2. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal
  3. Texas governor Rick Perry
  4. New Mexico governor Susana Martinez
  5. Indiana governor Mike Pence
  6. Texas senator Ted Cruz

Five out of six candidates are governors, because I really think we need to prefer people who have executive branch experience – experience at building consensus with Democrats in order to get sensible bills passed that will help middle class Americans. I would like to see Ben Carson run, but I think he would make a better HHS secretary than President. Ohio governor John Kasich is a good choice, but he doesn’t have the same accomplishments that the governors in my list have. Walker is my first choice because he took on the public sector unions and won.

There are also some people I don’t think should be President. I like Marco Rubio, but his support for amnesty disqualifies him as a candidate. Jeb Bush is disqualified because he is too supportive of amnesty and Common Core. Mitt Romney’s record is too supportive of abortion and gay rights. Romney also supports global warming alarmism. I think Romney is a better Democrat than he is a Republican. Rand Paul is only good on fiscal issues. On social issues Paul is a moderate. And foreign policy, Paul is a Democrat. Chris Christie is really a conservative Democrat.

If you want to learn more about Scott Walker, I recommend Walker’s new book. I actually got the audio version, and it’s read by governor Walker himself.

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