Skip to content

Republicans

Blog No. 38. Climate Change: Will the GOP Ever Warm Up To It?

On a recurring basis a rather troubling vision comes to mind. It is a reprise of that night on August 11, 2011 when Bret Baier said to the assembled candidates:

“I’m going to ask a question to everyone here on the stage. Say you had a deal, a real spending cuts deal, 10-to-1, as Byron [York] said, spending cuts to tax increases…. Who on this stage would walk away from that deal? Can you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes, you’d walk away on the 10-to-1 deal?”

All eight candidates dutifully raised their hand. It was then, if not before, that the image of Mitt Romney as human pretzel began to form.Blog 38 hands-300x1681Read More »Blog No. 38. Climate Change: Will the GOP Ever Warm Up To It?

Blog No. 37. Of George Will, the Chicago Cubs and RINOs.

George Will’s syndicated column provides weekly evidence that, even in 2014, the term “conservative intellectual” need not be an oxymoron. But Will is known not only for his erudite political analyses, but also for a love of baseball. The latter is a passion that has yielded three elegant books on the subject, and his latest, published this year, is A Nice Little Place on the North Side, Wrigley Field at One Hundred. Wrigley Field, as surely everyone knows, is the home of the Chicago Cubs, and Will is not just a baseball fan but a diehard Cubs fan, a distinction he shares with your correspondent.

Read More »Blog No. 37. Of George Will, the Chicago Cubs and RINOs.

Blog No. 36 Free Trade Agreements: Good Policy–and Good Politics for Republicans

Current debate over trade policy revolves around two confusingly similar acronyms: TPP and TPA. The first, TPP, refers to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free trade agreement among 12 Pacific nations. The second, TPA, refers to Trade Promotion Authority, (sometimes known as “Fast Track”), which provides for expedited consideration of trade agreements by Congress. The two are closely linked because, in the view of many observers, passage of TPA will be essential to concluding and ratifying the TPP agreement. Together, the TPP and TPA provide an interesting mix of policy and politics.BLOG 36 05edsall-map-articleLargeRead More »Blog No. 36 Free Trade Agreements: Good Policy–and Good Politics for Republicans

Blog No. 35. The Strange Case of Cliven Bundy and the Mojave Desert Tortoise.

Readers who have been focusing on weightier matters, perhaps the maneuvering of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, may not have followed closely the saga of Cliven Bundy. But in the issues involved, and the responses it has produced from left and right, Mr. Bundy’s story promises to become something of a fable for our times. Blog 35 Ranchers Read More »Blog No. 35. The Strange Case of Cliven Bundy and the Mojave Desert Tortoise.

Blog No. 31 GOP in the Desert: Looking for a Lawrence of Arabia

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) took place in Maryland last week, producing little heat and less light. Although some speakers acknowledged the need for the Republican Party to broaden its base, or to focus more on winning elections and less on ideology, concrete examples of either were in short supply. Given the sponsorship of the event, it is perhaps not surprising that stale pieties from the conservative canon were the carte du jour.

A more interesting picture of the Republican Party emerged from a February 25 article in The National Interest by Henry Olsen, “The Four Faces of the Republican Party.”  Based on a detailed analysis of primary elections in the past several years, Mr. Olsen refuted the notion that the fate of the Republican Party will lie in a contest between the Tea Party and the “establishment.” Rather, according to Olsen, there are four major factions within the Republican Party. The largest faction, and the one most likely to yield the Party’s nominee, is “slightly conservative.” Mr. Olsen’s essay was sufficiently cogent that it has already been summarized in full columns by two major pundits: Dan Balz in The Washington Post and Ross Douthat in The New York Times. Because it provides a useful counterpoint to CPAC, it deserves some further mention here.Read More »Blog No. 31 GOP in the Desert: Looking for a Lawrence of Arabia

Blog No. 30. A Good Day at the White House: “My Brother’s Keeper” and Food Labeling.

The Obama Administration has not had many good days in quite a while, and with the arrival of the crisis in Ukraine, it may not have many for some time. Yet last Thursday, February 27, just before Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea, it was a day at the White House that deserves to be remembered with favorable nods to both the President and First Lady.

For his part, President Obama spoke eloquently of the circumstances of black and Hispanic young men and announced a new initiative, “My Brother’s Keeper,” to address those circumstances. Later that day, Michelle Obama appeared with the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to announce proposed new rules for food labeling, a project that she had been working on for several years. Each announcement, we believe, was one that Republicans can applaud (or at least quietly approve).Read More »Blog No. 30. A Good Day at the White House: “My Brother’s Keeper” and Food Labeling.

Blog No. 29. The Politics of K-12: Common Core, Charter Schools, Vouchers and Teachers’ Tenure.

BLOG 29 0e1841151_reinventing-americas-schools One of the earliest offerings of RINOcracy.com was “Blog No 3. Common Core State Standards: A New Cause for the Tea Party.” Since then, controversy over the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has grown rather than diminished, and has become more complex. While the CCSS are the centerpiece of political debate, there are also disputes at federal, state and local levels over charter schools, vouchers and teacher tenure.

These are important issues that deserve the attention of RINOs and other Republicans. As we struggle with the challenges of income inequality and economic mobility, very few dispute that improving education is an essential ingredient of any successful approach to meeting those challenges. Moreover, it is increasingly apparent that first-rate education is vital to the ability of the United States to compete globally. But improvements are not easy to come-by. Different constituencies have differing perspectives, and attempts at reform that challenge the status quo inevitably generate resistance. Education reform is no exception.Read More »Blog No. 29. The Politics of K-12: Common Core, Charter Schools, Vouchers and Teachers’ Tenure.

Caught in the Net of a Triangular Prism (A Report From the Fourth Grade)

As regular followers of RINOcracy.com are aware, it is generally devoted to political commentary. But once in a while a change of pace may be in order, and this blog is one. As it happens, it is not entirely unrelated to previous concerns of RINOcracy.com, where we have already commented on issues involving K-12 education and plan to do so again soon. 

I recently began some tutoring at a nearby public school. Before embarking on this mission, I had warned the sponsoring organization that I would be of no use in attempting to help anyone with High School math homework. I have not solved an algebraic equation in well over half a century and the only thing I ever knew about calculus was that it gave frequent headaches to my freshman roommate at Cornell. “Not to worry,” they said, “we have a fourth grader for you.” “Sounds good,” I said. 

Read More »Caught in the Net of a Triangular Prism (A Report From the Fourth Grade)

Blog No. 27. Pre-K Education: Great Debate or Great Puzzle?

Letter puzzle - BLog 27 Pre-KRINOcracy.com believes strongly that early education is important, and that it is imperative in the case of children of lower socioeconomic status. Indeed, It appears that Head Start might have been more aptly named “Catching Up.”  An October 22 article in the New York Times reported a recent study showing that the educational handicaps of such children can be observed from almost the very start:

New research by Anne Fernald, a psychologist at Stanford University, which was published in Developmental Science this year, showed that at 18 months children from wealthier homes could identify pictures of simple words they knew — “dog” or “ball” — much faster than children from low-income families. By age 2, the study found, affluent children had learned 30 percent more words in the intervening months than the children from low-income homes.

If the Republican Party is to live up to its aspiration of being “the party of opportunity,” as the 2012 Platform proclaimed, it has no more important task than bringing opportunity to those children.  But, how to do that is not so clear.Read More »Blog No. 27. Pre-K Education: Great Debate or Great Puzzle?