The Club for Growth and the 2008 Presidential Race - Know thy enemy

The battle for the republican nomination for president has taken an historical turn and started before the 2006 mid terms were even over. It’s all quite the study in human nature, greed, deception and the ugliness of political reality in these United States.

On the net, we see a fight shaping up between supporters of the left wing globalist leaders of the republican party, mostly Giuliani supporters and the more traditionalist wing, mainly supporters of Duncan Hunter.

By now, anyone paying attention has seen the photos of Rudy in drag, which I thought was one of his more endearing moments, but I digress....

We’ve heard about his 3 marriages and his diva/Pelosi like behavior of airplanes, hotel accommodations and taking $100,000 speaking fee for the victims of a Tsunami. But hey, that’s all just ‘personal’ stuff. Character doesn’t matter in the Ferengi economic model the globalist pushers would foist on us.

Then there are Rudy’s liberal leaning interpretations of the 2nd amendment, immigration, partial birth abortion, hiring and promoting corrupt officials like Bernie Karrick. All proven true allegations, but when presented to a Rudyite, they are dismissed as meaningless.

So far the only arrows being slung at Duncan Hunter have been to cite a rating given him by the Club For Growth. He only scored a 49 % with the ‘Club’. Never mind that most other conservative organizations such as the NRA, NumbersUSA, American Conservative Union - (92% LIFETIME) rate Hunter near or at the top.

The bottom line is this. Duncan Hunter wants to secure our borders, his 26 year legislative history proves that. He also wants the truth told about trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA and China, Fast track trade authority that bypasses constitutionally mandated congressional control. The Club for Growth, and the people involved in it have done just the opposite. As will their pick for president.

Anyone looking at Duncan Hunters voting and legislative record must conclude that perhaps the ‘Club’ is more RINO than Republican or Conservative. The Club cites this:

National Taxpayers Union shows a more telling trend. He was strong in the early 1990s, getting "B's" and one "A", but as time went by, like most politicians, his score dropped. For the past few years, he's been getting "C's".

For the past few years? Well, yes, WAR appropriations happen to be expensive; he voted along the lines of his party and president. When Hunters record is examined bill, by bill his budget votes were about military spending. No one has yet made a case that any of his votes were ‘pork’ . But the ‘Club’ doesn’t mention that.

They do mention, " Despite being a member of the Republican Study Committee, Hunter frequently votes NO on their fiscally conservative annual budgets (2006, 2005, 2003...)"

When you look at those votes, you will see that the MAJORITY of republicans voted NO on them.

You be the judge, is the ‘Clubs’ analysis of Hunter even remotely indicative of reality? If what they convey here is true, they admit they do not agree with just about 2/3 of republicans voting in congress.

So who does the ‘Club for Growth’ agree with? One of the bills they faulted Duncan for voting for was a transportation bill. Republican congressmen voted 218 to 9 for it. Is Club for Growth representing the republican base or something else?

"The Club for Growth is a section 527 political organization and an affiliated political action committee that raises money for candidates who support an anti-tax and limited-government agenda. It was created by former Cato Institute fellow Stephen Moore. "

Stephen Moore. That’s a name anyone involved in the battle to secure our nations borders needs to know. And where you find Moore, you find Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich and common agendas. Often, those agendas are not 'conservative'.

Moore has written articles in favor of increased immigration to the U.S., and has debated against immigration restrictionists. In one article, Moore favorably cited a speech at Cato by Rep. Dick Armey, R-TX, who said he believes the U.S. "should be thinking about increasing legal immigration." Moore worked on studies for the wing immigration advocacy group, the National Immigration Forum, which favors amnesty for illegal aliens.

In 1996, Moore along with Grover Norquist helped defeat any measures aimed at enforcement in an immigration reform bill.

Marcus Stern describes Moores involvement in an award winning article.

The coalition was a juggernaut that fought virtually any verification initiative. Because Republicans control Congress, conservative lobbyists were especially influential. The fact that some limited, voluntary verification projects stayed in the bill at all outraged some conservatives.

"I view it as the camel's nose under the tent for a national ID card," said Stephen Moore, an economist with the Cato Institute who lobbied against the bill. "The theme we played to Republicans was that if you're trying to roll back big government, you shouldn't be instituting this new police-state power."

Social conservatives like Norquist and libertarians like Moore don't see illegal immigration as a major problem.

"Illegal immigration is part of the price we pay for being both a prosperous and a free country, and I'm not willing to sacrifice some of our freedoms to try to keep out immigrants, especially when I don't think it's going to work very well," said Moore.

He added that spending $3 billion-plus a year to fund the Immigration and Naturalization Service "probably is a waste of money. But this is a political issue. And the way you deal with illegal immigration is you increase the INS budget. It doesn't do a lot, but at least politicians on both sides can go home and say, `Well, how can you say I'm not doing anything about immigration? I increased the INS budget.' "

What you don't do, he said, is involve employers in enforcement.

"Sometimes in politics you pass feel-good measures," Moore said. "And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Passing a bill that's mostly window dressing is a way of defusing public alarm about something. And in states like California, illegal immigration is perceived as a big problem."

Working closely with Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, Cesar Conda (former domestic advisor to Dick Cheney) circulated a statement against Prop. 187 of California in the nineties.

And what have Moore and his associate Grover Norquist been up to lately? More of the same.

Last fall the Club for Growth worked against conservative republican candidate Robert Vasquez, an ardent illegal alien opponent by funding his opposition.

Moore, along with Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Tamar Jacoby and other amnesty advocates penned a letter to the Wall St Journal proclaiming Bush’s guest worker plan as "a humane, orderly, and economically sensible approach to migration."

On September 19, 2005, the Federal Election Commission filed suit against the Club for Growth for violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act for failing to register as a political action committee in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 congressional elections.

You can be sure that both Stephen Moore and Grover Norquist are working full time to keep our borders open and promote any and all trade/labor agreements whether they benefit the USA and it’s people or not.

Moore said this about Norquist. "From the moment he gets up to the moment he gets to bed, he thinks, 'How am I going to hurt the other team?"

Whoever the Club for Growth decides to push for president, you can be sure they don't believe it if that candidate pretends to want to secure the border and implement sane trade policy.

Buyer, BEWARE.

It should come as no surprise that the Club for Growth would come out against Duncan Hunter.

Wear it as a badge of honor, Congressman!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


And Bank of America giving credit cards to illegal aliens......this may be one reason!


Monica Lozano on Bank of America board; National Council of La Raza

This is a Bank of America press release from March 20, 2006 [1]:
Monica Lozano, publisher of the nation's largest Spanish- language newspaper, has been nominated to Bank of America's board of directors...
...[BofA] has relationships with 48 percent of Hispanic households in its coast-to-coast territory, more than any other bank in the United States. Last year more than 21 percent of all new hires by the bank were Hispanic.

She was approved and currently serves on their board [2]. And, since 21 percent is close to double the percentage of Hispanics in the U.S., perhaps the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights should look into their recruitment efforts.
Also in 2005, Bank of America became the first financial institution to make electronic money transfers to Mexico free for its customers through a SafeSend feature with a checking account. For its efforts in the Hispanic community, Latina Style Magazine named Bank of America its 2005 Company of the Year.
Lozano, 49, is the publisher and CEO of Los Angeles-based La Opinion, the nation's largest Spanish-language daily newspaper. She is also senior vice president of Impremedia LLC, the first national Spanish-language newspaper company in the United States. Among her many community leadership positions, Ms. Lozano is currently chairwoman of The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

[1] newsroom.bankofamerica.com/index.php?s=press_releases&item=7342
[2] investor.bankofamerica.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71595&p=irol- govboard