Ron Paul & Rick Santorum Whine About Mitt Romney's Victory At CPAC & Maine

After Rick Santorum sweeps Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota, Mitt Romney gets his momentum back with some big victories that he wasn't expected to win in:

At CPAC, the former Massachusetts governor nabbed 38 percent of activists’ support to edge out Rick Santorum, who finished second with 31 percent.

In Maine, he won by just three points, 39 percent to Paul’s 36 percent. Santorum trailed in third with 18 percent, and Newt Gingrich received 6 percent of the vote.

Like Newt Gingrich after suffering at loss at the ballot, Rick Santorum is upset about Mitt Romney's victory at CPAC: 

When CNN's "State of the Union" host Candy Crowley said she was surprised Santorum didn't do better with party conservatives, he shot back: "Well, you know, those straw polls at CPAC... for years Ron Paul has won those because he trucks in a lot of people, pays for their tickets, and they come in and vote and they leave. We didn't do that, we don't do that. i don't try to rig straw polls."

Did Romney rig CPAC?

"You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets they bought, we've heard all sorts of things," Santorum said.

"We didn't pay them to turn out," he added, speaking of his supporters at CPAC, Missouri and elsewhere.

Of course, Mitt Romney dismissed Santorum's accusations:

“Rick Santorum has a history of making statements that aren’t grounded in the truth," said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

"Yesterday Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw poll and won a separate nationwide survey of conservatives conducted by CPAC  organizers. Also, Mitt Romney won the Maine caucuses. Conservative voters recognize that in order to change Washington, we need someone who isn't a creature of Washington.”

Ron Paul is also unhappy with his loss and which is why its not surprising he's come up with a conspiracy theory as to why they lost in Maine:

The Paul campaign had tried to lower expectations somewhat during the day, alleging that the Romney campaign had been involved in some tricky business, and predicting that the results would be very close.

In particular, a senior Paul aide had suggested that the Romney campaign was involved in the cancellation of Washington County’s caucuses, a small county where Paul’s campaign had expected to do well. “It’s not completely insidious, but they knew we were going to swamp it up there,” said Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton.

As a result, Ron Paul is refusing to refusing to accept the results that Romney won that state's caucus.

In this election, we have seen three men who are aspiring to the highest office of the land acting like children who are upset when they lose an election. If Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul continue to whine whenever they lose an election, they will drive away voters into supporting Mitt Romney who is the only mature and responsible adult in this election.

California Teacher Punishes Students "Who Say God Bless You"

A teacher named Steve Cuckovich who teaches at William C. Wood High School in Vacaville, California has openly admitted that he will reduce if a student says "God Bless You" to someone who sneezes: 

In a perverse way, it makes sense that a health teacher would prefer that his students say Gesundheit —which in its most literal translation means “health-ness”—when someone sneezes. The one thing they can’t say inside the classroom of the delightfully named Steve Cuckovich is “God bless you.” If they do, they automatically lose 25 points off their grade.

Cuckovich, who teaches health at William C. Wood High School in Vacaville, California, claims that this standard rote response to a sneeze is disrespectful and disruptive.

Instead of sharing my thoughts on this matter, there's someone who has already given his deep insight on this issue. Over to you Dane Cook:

The Case Against Voting For Rick Santorum In 2012

Rick Santorum has had a great night tonight by winning the Colorado and Minnesota caucus and the non-binding Missouri primary. However, voters need to know why conservatives cannot vote for Rick Santorum in future election contests. Look at the list below for reasons why:

1. Rick Santorum has trashed the TEA Party.
2. Rick Santorum faces several ethical questions about using his position in Congress to benefit himself and others.
3. In the 104th Congress Sen. Santorum joined all Democrats and a minority of Republicans in voting to filibuster the bill S. 1788, the National Right to Work Act of 1995. (“On the Cloture Motion (motion to invoke cloture on motion to proceed to consider S.1788),” Senate Bill Clerk, Vote Number: 188, www.senate.gov, 7/10/1996)
4. During that same congressional session, Santorum also voted to retain the 1930s-era Davis-Bacon Act that forces taxpayers to pay union wages in government-funded construction and gives Big Labor an unfair advantage over non-union companies and workers (“On the Motion to Table (motion to table Kennedy Amendment No. 4031 to S.Amdt. 4000 to S.Con.Res. 57),” Senate Bill Clerk, Vote Number: 134, www.senate.gov, 5/22/1996)
5. He also voted against allowing a waiver of Davis-Bacon in emergency situations.
6. Has flipped flopped on his positions regarding unions. He routinely supported them but then abandoned them as soon as he started running for President. 
7. He drafted legislation that would increase the national minimum wage. 
8. In 1993, Santorum was one of 17 House Republicans who sided with most Democrats in backing a Clinton administration bill to protect striking employees from being permanently replaced by their employers.
9. He quickly became a millionaire in six years after after losing the Senate. 
10. Rick Santorum may have played a role in the K Street Project scandal but he denies it. 
11. Rick Santorum has repeatedly attacked Mitt Romney in several debates about RomneyCare yet he endorsed RomneyCare. 
12. He also supported President George W. Bush’s big government entitlement program Medicare Plan Part D. 
13. He failed to qualify for the Virginia ballot and the Indiana ballot. 
14. He supported Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey, and thereby provided Obama, years later, with his final critical vote for the “Affordable Care Act,” or Obamacare.
15. He also voted for Alexis Herman in which she was appointed by Bill Clinton to be Secretary of Labor.
16. Lets not forget his embarrassing involvement in the Terri Schaivo case. 
17. He voted for Alaska's Bridge To Nowhere. 
18. He voted against confirming Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense in 2006. 
    
19. Rick Santorum also voted for mandatory Federal child care funding.
20. He has voted for minimum wage increases on six different occasions.
21. He voted no on the Employer Verify Amendment (S AMDT 4177) 
22. Voted yes on English As National Language Amendment (S AMDT 4064) which would have made English the official language of the United States but voted against the on the English as Unifying Language Amendment (S AMDT 4073) which requires that all services or materials provided by the U.S. government to be only done in English. This vote doesn't make sense to me since he wants to make English the official language of the U.S. but doesn't want our government to publish all documents only in English. 
23. In 2005, Santorum voted against the Reduction in Dependence on Foreign Oil (S AMDT 784) that sets a goal to decrease imports of foreign oil by 40 percent over the next 20 years.
24. Voted against the Kosovo Resolution that would have authorized President Bill Clinton to send troops in Yugoslavia.
25. He voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Implementation Act. (HR 3450) 
26. In 1993, Santorum voted against Authorization for Use of U.S. Armed Forces in Somalia (S J Res 45)
27. He voted twice in support of Fedex Unionization
    
28. He voted for a law to require a union representative on an IRS oversight board and also voted to exempt IRS union representative from criminal ethics laws.
29. He voted against creating independent Board of Governors to investigate IRS abuses
30. In 2001, he voted against eliminating the marriage tax penalty.
31. He voted for the Cesar Chavez Workplace Fairness Act (HR 5) which prohibits employers from hiring permanent replacements when employees strike over wages or benefits
32. Amazingly, he voted against Off-budget Lockbox Amendment (S Amdt 3690) which would protect Social Security surpluses and move Medicare trust fund surpluses off budget to prevent using them for other purposes. This bill alone would have helped save America tons of money and help us reduce our national deficit since politicians love to raid entitlement funds to pay for other projects we cannot afford only to make it more difficult for America to keep our entitlement programs running. Unless we reform our entitlement program, our country is headed for some serious economic trouble.
    

Based on Rick Santorum's record, he's a candidate conservatives and Republicans cannot support. I could go on with more facts about his voting record but its sufficient to say that there are alot more reasons why Republicans and conservatives cannot vote to support him. 

We need a President who will really help us become energy independent, fight against unions, will support free trade, lower taxes and manages our entitlement programs responsibly. Clearly, Rick Santorum isn't that man.

Newt Gingrich's 2012 Campaign Beginning To Melt Down

Every time Newt Gingrich loses an primary election to Mitt Romney, he gets angrier and angrier to the point that it becomes disturbing. Newt Gingrich displayed that same level of bitterness and anger last night after it was declared that Mitt Romney won the Nevada Caucus. 

Rather than give a speech in front of his supporters, Newt Gingrich chose to hold a press conference in which he goes on a deranged rant on Mitt Romney. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post described this press conference as a mixture of "Howard Dean’s scream and Richard Nixon’s White House farewell speech."

You can watch him melt down on the video below:

While Newt Gingrich was delivering his rant, Saturday Night Live opened up with a skit spoofing Newt's plan to establish a colony on the moon by 2020:

It was an unfortunate coincidence for Newt Gingrich to have SNL run this skit while he's giving his angry press conference because it now fuses two ideas about Gingrich together. He's both angry and crazy. 

Even John Stewart couldn't resist poking fun at Newt's plan for a lunar colony: 

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John Stewart adds new dimension to the public perception of Newt's character and may have done the most damage to Newt Gingrich's image because he brilliantly tied his history of infidelity with his outlandish idea to establish a lunar colony.

The public perception of Newt Gingrich is a serious problem for him. It doesn't help the fact that Gingrich's favorability ratings are low because of his conduct as Speaker of the House during the 1990s and that he's unfaithful man to both his wife. People are starting to become even more unhappy about him now that its been revealed that his relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are closer than he explained it to be.

However, rather than change the public perception of him, his behavior is only increasing his unfavorability ratings even further. Newt Gingrich is now justifiably being portrayed as an angry, bitter, vindictive politician and Newt's only behavior confirms that. Newt's press conference made his bad night of losing to Romney even worse and doesn't help him at all. Moreover, he's now being compared to Ron Paul in that they are both politically loony because they offer ideas that are neither economically feasible,  politically possible or make sense. Ron Paul maybe crazy, but he's not angry or bitter. Newt has both negative qualities.

Newt Gingrich will get even more angry and crazier as he drives voters and political donors to the Romney Camp. But he has no one to blame but himself.

Mitt Romney Wins The Nevada Caucus

Mitt Romney got a strong victory tonight when all the major news outlets declared him the winner despite the fact that only 20% of the results have been reported. Once victory was declared, Romney gave a rousing speech defending economic liberty, religious liberty and the Constitution. 

Tonight's victory is expected to be first in long string of victories as more and more primary states hold their elections. An important ally in helping Mitt Romney win the upcoming primaries might be the people of his own faith:

Now that he has survived, if only barely, the evangelical-dominated contests in Iowa and South Carolina, Romney is poised to benefit as the geography of the GOP race moves west to states such as Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.

There, Romney will be aided by the more robust presence from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members tend to vote in high numbers and supported Romney en masse in 2008. That makes the Western-heavy lineup of February primary and caucus states, which also includes Romney’s native state of Michigan, a promising opportunity for Romney to deny his opponents any semblance of political traction.

On top of the sheer numerical bonus of having more Mormon voters at the polls, Republicans say it will help Romney to compete on turf where voters of all stripes — even more conservative Christian Republicans — are more familiar with Mormonism and view it with less suspicion.

“The LDS thing I think is probably less of an issue here … because we’re so familiar with Mormons and the LDS faith,” said former Colorado Rep. Bob Beauprez, a Romney supporter. “I think most people see them as patriotic folks, good neighbors, hard workers, wonderful family values. The mystery, if there’s any of that, just doesn’t exist out here.”

However, Mormons won't be the only group that will help propel Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination. Exit polls from all the primary states so far that he's winning the support of people from across the board religiously, economically, by age and all along the wide spectrum of libertarian, moderate, and strong conservatives.  The fact that Mitt Romney is doing so well across a variety of voters in the primaries is a preview of the kind of support he will receive in the general elections from Reagan democrats, moderates, independents, libertarians, Tea Partiers and conservatives. Its possible that many liberals will also abandon Obama at the ballot box in November given his poor performance on the economy. 

Nobody can predict the future but all indicators suggest that Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination. Right now, he's far ahead in the delegate count with 95 delegates, has a major fundraising advantage over his Republican competitors,  has superior campaign organization and an awesome campaign staff. These advantages will surely help Mitt Romney in the general election when he will defeat Obama and become the next president in 2012. 

Newt Gingrich Under Investigation For Petition Fraud

Sometime in late December, through sheer incompetence, Newt Gingrich failed to get on the Virgina ballot despite the fact that all the candidates had five months to gather enough signatures to qualify, received a memorandum from the Virginia Republican Party that explained the validation process for candidate petitions in the presidential race to qualify for the primary ballot in October and sent out verification requirements to all campaigns in March of this year.

Regardless of the fact that Newt Gingrich had advanced notice from the Virginia Republican Party about what it will take to get on the ballot, he was determined to get on the ballot. He vowed to wage a write in campaign until he discovered that a write in campaign is illegal in Virginia. Frustrated that he wasn't on the ballot, the former Speaker of the House complained that his failure to get enough signatures to get on the ballot was alot like Pearl Harbor.

Another candidate who failed to make the Virginia ballot was Rick Perry. He sued to get his name on the ballot but the judge rejected the lawsuit because all the candidates waited too long to sue. This was a major setback for all of the candidates who didn't qualify. 

Ken Cuccinelli, the Attorney General for Virginia announced that he planned fix the problem by filing emergency legislation to allow more candidates to make it on the ballot but then backed off on the idea.

We are now learning that Newt Gingrich was so desperate to get on the Virginia ballot that he's now under investigation for petition fraud: 

In late December, after Gingrich failed to turn in enough valid signatures to qualify in Virginia, he was caught on video tape telling a supporter in Iowa that the reason for the failure was due to a campaign worker who created 1,500 fraudulent signatures.

"We turned in 11,100, we needed 10,000, 1,500 of them were by one guy who, frankly, committed fraud," Gingrich is seen and heard saying in video originally aired by CNN.

The signatures prompted the State Board of Elections to send the case to the Virginia Attorney General's office two weeks ago. The Deputy Secretary of the SBE called the actions described by Gingrich, if true, "definitely an illegal act."

Newt Gingrich, not a man to waste an opportunity to whine about the primary election process is now complaining about his major loss in Florida by challenging Florida’s “winner take all” rule and is demanding proportional award of delegates even though Newt Gingrich knew about Florida's winner take all rule before the election but waited after the election to complain about it: 

Asked about the challenge on FOX News' "Hannity" program Thursday night, Romney said, "It would be nice if he challenged the rules before he lost, rather than after he lost."

Romney also compared the legal challenge to the one Gingrich unsuccessfully launched after missing out on making the ballot in Virginia.

The leaders of the Florida Republican Party sent out a memo that effectively takes the wind out of Newt's challenge by explaining that Florida has already been punished for moving their primary election up on the calendar: 

"With regard to proportionality, the RNC does not have the authority to intervene in a state’s primary plans beyond the imposition of the Rule 16 penalties.  A contest procedure exists for challenges to a state’s delegation or delegates.  The RNC cannot consider any issue regarding Florida’s delegation unless and until a proper contest is brought.  If a contest is properly and timely filed, the Committee on Contests and the RNC will have the opportunity to hear the contest and determine if there are any further steps to be taken beyond the penalties that have already been imposed"

So far, Mitt Romney will get to keep his 50 delegates that he won from the Florida primary. Newt's strategy for challenging Florida is to make sure that Romney doesn't win the Republican nomination even if Gingrich himself doesn't win either: 

The strategy of the Gingrich campaign is not necessarily to win 1144 delegates, as much as it is to deny Romney the 1144 delegates needed to secure the nomination and attempt to convert the “not Romney” delegates to his slate at the convention. Taking the steps to alter Florida’s winner take all method to a proportional method works to Gingrich’s delusional fait accompli.  If he can’t win the nomination, no one else should either.

This is why conservatives cannot support Newt Gingrich because he is as narcissistic, impulsive and arrogant as Bill Clinton and Obama and will stop not nothing to get his way even it it means potentially engaging in voter fraud, complaining about the results of the primary after instead of before the election, or damaging the Republican Party in the process of trying to win.

Newt Gingirch Will Destroy The Rule Of Law

Rodney K. Smith, who is a teacher at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and a good friend of mine, wrote an article for the Deseret Newspaper to explain how Newt Gingrich's whitepaper will undermine the rule of law in America:

In that whitepaper, Gingrich declares, "A Gingrich administration will use any appropriate executive branch powers by itself and acting in coordination with the legislative branch to check and balance any Supreme Court decision it believes to be fundamentally unconstitutional and to rein in federal judge(s)."

And, if necessary, Gingrich would direct the United States Marshal's Office to bring judges with whom he disagrees before Congress to explain their decisions.

If such expressions of displeasure with judges were unsuccessful, then the Gingrich administration would turn to more draconian methods to impose its constitutional will on recalcitrant judges. The Gingrich administration would "abolish judgeships," "eliminate funding of the courts to carry out specific decisions or a class of decisions," "limit the general application of a judicial decision" or, if all that failed, simply "ignor(e) a judicial decision."

Legal conservatives, such as myself, cannot support Newt Gingrich because he will erase the checks and balances that keeps our nation free. Once the delicate checks and balances are removed by a president who has no respect for limits of his power, it makes it easier for future presidents to further erode the structure of our government and rise to greater heights of abuse of presidential power:

If the executive branch uses its enormous store of power to impose its "constitutional" will and ignore court decisions, the rule of law will be eviscerated. Even if Gingrich exercises this extreme power wisely, he must understand that his successor may not. He will have put in place a grandiose plan that permits a president, at his whim, to deprive the American people of life and liberty.

Conservatives are rightly outraged at the current abuses of presidential power in the White House. However, Newt Gingrich's vision for the judiciary is far dangerous to our country than anything Obama has done in office because its a direct threat on the Constitution. It strikes at the very core and foundation of our nation since our country is predicated on the dedication and respect for the rule of law. 

Conservatives are rightly concerned about activist judges, unconstitutional judicial decisions and the abuse of judicial powers. However, Newt's solution will not fix the problem but will contribute to the further imbalances of power among the three branches of our government. 

Legal Conservatives should rally around Mitt Romney because his solution to the problems in our judicial system is to appoint as many conservative judges who respect the rule of law and are strict constructionists. Mitt has an excellent record that legal conservatives can be proud of. As a result, Mitt Romney is the candidate legal conservatives want in the White House in 2012.