Loading ...Roughing It in the Midwest
By kittyhawk | August 5, 2009
Well, I must apologize for the unnatural silence recently. There is really no excuse beyond a lack of especially notable CR activity during the summer months. That pattern has been broken, however, by the Wisconsin-Iowa Leadership Summit held at the Maquoketa State Park in Iowa last weekend. It was too far for me to drive, (don’t think folks outside the Midwest were invited anyway), but several tidbits have filtered in to us that provide a nice summary.
State chairs Dane (Iowa) and Lora Rae (Wisconsin) led their respective states in planning and hosting the campout/training that began Friday afternoon with the early arrival of Zach Howell and continued through a full day’s activities Saturday to Sunday morning’s gradual departure of the other attending states (including Jon Ratliff with a crew from Missouri and Lauren Fakes with an Indiana contingent). The training session lasted most of the day Saturday and included talks from Zach, Jeremy Hagen, former Iowa state chair Greg Baker, Dane, Lora and others, as well as some general discussion and Q and A time.
High points:
Food and drink was abundant. All took full advantage of the fact. All were dubbed great Americans in the spirit of conservative fellowship. This may or may not explain the midnight group who went out for a jog after the festivities Friday night, led by an Indiana gentleman said to be training for a marathon.
Saturday’s events were crowned with afternoon cave explorations in which Iowa held their own but Missouri got really dirty. (Wisconsin and Indiana exercised discretion and served more as support staff.) Mr. Hagen seemed to have some experience in spelunking and was outfitted to the teeth. The honorable national chair came less prepared but was game for most of the trek. All the appropriate Boy Scout skills were on full display around the fires both evenings, and I understand the ladies were appropriately impressed.
For more details, feel free to consult Dane’s more official report here. Kudos to these states for hosting a uniquely creative, not to mention adventurous, event. Might be a little rough for my taste, but you can’t say those Midwesterners aren’t tough!
Topics: CR events, Iowa CRs, Missouri CRs, growth, Wisconsin CRs, Indiana CRs | 2 Comments »
CRNC hosting training via Conf. Call
By punch bowl | July 9, 2009
Four nights next week, the CRNC will host a training open to ALL College Republicans via conference call on the subject of recruitment.
The days, times and call information for the training are as follows (taken from CRNC blog):
Monday July 13 @ 9:00 p.m. (Central)
Dial-in Number: 1-309-946-5000
Participant Access Code: email jhagen@crnc.org for the access codeTuesday July 14 @ 8:00 p.m. (Central)
Dial-in Number: 1-309-946-5000
Participant Access Code: email jhagen@crnc.org for the access codeWednesday July 15 @ 8:30 p.m. (Central)
Dial-in Number: 1-309-946-5000
Participant Access Code: email jhagen@crnc.org for the access codeThursday July 16 @ 9:30 p.m. (Central)
Dial-in Number: 1-309-946-5000
Participant Access Code: email jhagen@crnc.org for the access code
Topics: CR gossip, CRNC conference calls, CRNC | 3 Comments »
Patients First
By sage of monticello | July 7, 2009
The health care battle heats up as issue advocacy groups, such as Americans for Prosperity, start running ads against Obama’s government-run plan.
Topics: health care, health care policy, Pres. Obama | No Comments »
60
By rawhide | July 6, 2009
Not the most inspiring video I’ve ever seen.
Topics: NRSC | No Comments »
Cap and Trade Song
By sage of monticello | July 6, 2009
Topics: Congressional Democrats, Pres. Obama, Cap and Trade | No Comments »
Glorious triumph
By rawhide | July 4, 2009
These are the times that try men’s souls.
So wrote Thomas Paine in the bitter cold of December 1776. Paine had joined General George Washington’s ragged Continental Army in Pennsylvania following a string of defeats and retreats.
Paine knew well the desperate situation. Supplies were low. Morale was lower. Most soldiers who did not desert would finish their military commitment at the end of the month, and were in no hurry to re-enlist. The British camped across the river in New Jersey, with likely only one battle remaining between them and a decisive victory over their rebellious colonies.
Fewer than six months before, 56 men had signed away their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Now all seemed lost for the fledgling country.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Paine’s stirring words were read to the Continental Army as they boarded rickety rowboats on Christmas night. Washington’s risky battle plan required his army to cross the ice-filled Delaware River in the middle of a blinding snowstorm. Thanks to the protection of Divine Providence, the Americans made it across. The ensuing victories in Trenton and Princeton kept the American dream alive.
On Independence Day, conservatives like us enjoy looking back at those 56 men in Philadelphia. Today, we will admire their courage and sacrifice. And for the next 364 days, we will bemoan the state of our country, our leaders, and the direction they take us, as if America has never faced dark days before.
America is not great today because of the eloquence of Thomas Jefferson and others, the military genius of George Washington, or the wisdom of those who fashioned a Constitution and government never before seen in the history of man. America is great because every time we have faced a challenge, we have overcome it.
America has conquered challenges that dwarf those before us today: a revolution against the most powerful army on earth; a bloody civil war that pitted brother against brother; a great depression; two wars that ravaged the globe; a cold war with nuclear weapons on a hairtrigger. Our economy has been worse – look at the 1930s or the 1890s. Our leaders have been worse – for hubris, look to Jackson; for incompetence, look to Buchanan; for liberalism, look to Franklin Roosevelt. Yet America still stands today as the greatest country on earth.
On this Independence Day, celebrate the courage of the Founding Fathers. But also remember the dark days, and the victories that followed.
Remember the words of Benjamin Franklin in Independence Hall on the day the Declaration of Independence was signed:
I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.
These times in which we live also try men’s souls. But like the American heroes of the past, we will emerge in glorious triumph. One day soon, we again will see “Morning in America.”
Topics: freedom | 1 Comment »
The Declaration of Independence
By rawhide | July 4, 2009
I read the entire Declaration every Independence Day. Below is the text, if you want to do the same.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
If you do not want to read the stirring text, you can listen to it. In this video, a group of celebrities recite the Declaration of Independence.
If like football as much as I do, you also might enjoy this abbreviated reading done by NFL players, past and present.
Topics: patriotism | No Comments »
Happy Birthday!
By cr nation | July 4, 2009
To America, for 233 years as a free country. May we always be willing to pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, so that liberty may long endure.
To CR Nation, for two years as the source for CR news. Thanks to all our readers for your support.
Topics: CR Nation | No Comments »
Politico Podcast: Howell says College GOP not down or out
By punch bowl | July 2, 2009
Check out new Politico’s podcast with new National College Republican Chairman Zach Howell here.
During the podcast, Howell says that “We’re optimistic. We think that ultimately our policies are better for young people, and are more sustainable and responsible.”
Later on in the podcast, Mr. Howell is asked to comment on the old adage “If you are young and conservative you have no heart, but if you are old and liberal you have no brain.”
Again, to check out the podcast, click here.
Topics: CR gossip, politics, Zach Howell | No Comments »
Another internship program, this for McDonnell in VA
By rawhide | June 30, 2009
From the GW College Republicans blog:
The CRFV and the McDonnell campaign are excited to announce a paid summer internship available to College Republicans in targeted localities across the Commonwealth. All interns will be expected to work 21 hours per week and will be paid $10 per hour. This field internship will focus on voter contact and spreading the word through new media and traditional grassroots efforts for Victory 2009. Hours will be in the evenings and on weekends, giving students the flexibility to hold other summer jobs if they choose. Please contact Andrew Lamar at andrewtlamar@gmail.com for more information.
Topics: Republicans, 2009 VA Guv race | No Comments »