Mark Sanford Beats Colbert Busch By 9% In SC 1st District Special Election

sanford-wins1

Former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford easily won the special election for the Tim Scott’s vacated congressional seat, representing South Carolina’s 1st District. Even though Sanford was outspent 5 to 1 by Colbert Busch, the contest wasn’t that close, with the former SC Governor out performing his opponent by more than 9 percentage points.

Many politicos had the contest even going in, but that was based on earlier polls showing Busch with a 10 percentage point lead over Sanford. Due to the work of local Tea party groups and volunteers, Sanford tightened up the race in the final stretch, even though the GOP pulled funding. Tea Party supporters suggested that the GOP establishment wasn’t too keen on having another fiscally conservative house member to contend with and surmised that many in the GOP saw Sanford as a liability.

In his victory speech, Sanford committed to bringing his brand of fiscal conservatism to the house and promised the voters of South Carolina’s 1st district that he would work hard to represent their interests in Washington, DC.

Some conservative strategists suggest this could be a preview of things to come in 2014 and 2016, when congressional Democrats will no longer be able to ride Obama’s coat tails into office, as they had in 2008 and 2012.

On an interesting side bar, supporters of Colbert Busch flooded social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook with nasty personal attacks directed toward Mark Sanford. They went on to slander and attack the residents of South Carolina, calling them “Dumb”, “Stupid” and “Hypocritical”, among other disparaging remarks.

During her concession speech, Colbert Busch stated that she respected the decision of the people, although many in attendance didn’t appear to agree. Busch had to chastise her rowdy crowd of supporters for booing when she made that statement.

U.S. Immigration System Isn’t Broken – Laws Are Simply Not Being Enforced

illegal-alien-thumb

Politicians, along with their media allies, are constantly parroting the lie that our immigration system is broken. Actually, there is very little wrong the immigration system we have in place, except for enforcement of our current immigration laws, and the fact that our borders are not being protected and secured.

When criminal illegal aliens are detained and their crimes are deemed to be “minor” or “non-violent”, they are summarily released back into the population. During a one month period, between February 1st and March 9th of 2013, ICE released 2,228 illegal aliens, with 629 of them having prior criminal records.

In recent testimony before a congressional committee, ICE chief John Morton revealed the following:

Morton said the freed detainees included not only undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, but also people convicted of theft, financial crimes and drunk driving. “In some cases, multiple DUIs,”

If our current laws are not being enforced, why should the American people believe the any new laws will be enforced? As a matter of fact, there are provisions in the New Immigration Bill which allow criminal illegal aliens, with multiple convictions, to qualify for immediate legal status.

In a recent press release, Senator Jeff Sessions pointed out the many problems with the Gaggle of Eight’s Amnesty Bill, including the Obama Administration’s abuse of prosecutorial discretion to prevent the enforcement of federal law.

It will also provide safe harbor to those who have committed a variety of offenses—ranging from identity theft, to multiple immigration violations, and even those with criminal records.

Another misleading statistic, being reported by Amnesty proponents and major media outlets, is that 11 million illegal aliens will be given a path to citizenship (Amnesty). The actual number is closer to 57 million over the next 10 years.

Sen. Jeff Sessions shows that more than 32 million immigrants would receive legal status over the next decade and an additional 25 million would be granted non-immigrant work visas under the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill.

It is clear that any new provisions pertaining to securing the borders, as well as limiting, prosecuting and/or deporting illegal aliens, will not be enforced. Even the GOP front man for Amnesty, Marco Rubio has admitted that “waivers” in the bill give federal officials discretion in applying any new laws.

The time is now, before this flawed, misguided legislation is passed into law, for all concerned citizens to contact their representatives and urge them to oppose the so called “Immigration Reform Bill”, which is effectively, nothing more than Amnesty without real enforcement.

Sanford Schools Colbert In Congressional Debate

sanford-colbert-debate

The South Carolina 1st District Congressional debate between Former Governor Mark Sanford and Elizabeth Colbert Busch demonstrated a stark difference between the two candidates. While Governor Sanford demonstrated a knowledge and command of the issues, Colbert Busch appeared uninformed and defensive. Sanford highlighted his excellent track record of fiscal conservatism. On the other hand, it was quite clear Colbert Busch was attempting to hide her liberal positions from the voters of the conservative leaning 1st district.

Sanford hammered Busch over the flood of money she received from left-wing special interests, including massive financial backing from Nancy Pelosi’s PAC, labor unions and other liberal organizations. Colbert Busch cannot compete with the conservative record of Mark Sanford, so she resorted to typical leftist strategy of personal attacks, in her efforts to discredit the former Governor.

Candidate’s Positions On The Issues

Mark Sanford

  • Smaller Government
  • Lower Taxes
  • Less Regulation
  • Supports School Vouchers
  • Opposes Medicaid/Medicare Expansion in SC
  • Opposes Illegal Alien Amnesty
  • Opposes Gun Control
  • Opposed Government Stimulus
  • Anti-Abortion

Elizabeth Colbert Busch

  • Larger Government
  • Higher Taxes
  • More Government Regulation
  • Supports Medicaid/Medicare Expansion in SC
  • Opposes School Vouchers
  • Supports Current Amnesty Bill
  • Supports More Gun Control
  • Supports Government Stimulus
  • Pro-Abortion

Watching the debate, the only conclusion one could reach is that Colbert Bush is a run of the mill liberal, backed by liberal special interests, who is attempting to hide who she really is and how she will vote, if elected to Congress.

For this reason, Upstate Voice is officially endorsing Mark Sanford. There is no question that our former governor is the real conservative choice in this race.

Unprincipled GOP Senators Betray Constituents With Vote For Massive Tax Increases With No Cuts

Mitch McConnell (Sen. R-Ky):: Obstructionist Republican Clown

As predicted in my December 2nd thread entitled: Likely Outcome Of So Called Fiscal Cliff Negotiations, progressive GOP establishment hacks voted to raise taxes today, while at the same time, putting aside the needed cuts agreed to during the debt ceiling debate.

My (cough) representative, Senator Lindsay Graham, can be counted as one of the establishment cabal who abandoned his constituents’ wishes, with empty promises to stand on principle at some later time (yeah, right). The Senate bill is a complete disaster, loaded with tons of pork, stimulus spending and other ancillary legislative tripe. As usual, with these last minute legislative debacles, no one has had time to really dig into the bill and expose the nastiness contained within. The Full Text of HR-8 can be found here.

The new Bill raises taxes on successful businesses and families earning 400k/450k per year, respectively. This unnecessary tax hike does nothing to solve our fiscal crisis. It will barely pay for the Fed’s Hurricane Sandy bailout, much less add one cent toward solving the debt and deficit issues we have. In keeping the class warfare agenda of the Obama administration and his far left allies, these new taxes are simply an effort to punish success.

Another distasteful element of the legislation is in regards to the Estate Tax. The Estate Tax is specifically designed to punish those who have been successful over their lives and to ensure that it’s much more difficult for families to accumulate generational wealth. This is particularly difficult on small family farms and businesses.

(c) Modifications of Estate Tax-
(1) MAXIMUM ESTATE TAX RATE EQUAL TO 40 PERCENT – The table contained in subsection (c) of section
2001, as amended by section 302(a)(2) of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job
Creation Act of 2010, is amended by striking `Over $500,000′ and all that follow s and inserting the
following:

Over $500,000 but not over $750,000 $155,800, plus 37 percent of the excess of such amount over $500,000.
Over $750,000 but not over $1,000,000 $248,300, plus 39 percent of the excess of such amount over $750,000.
Over $1,000,000 $345,800, plus 40 percent of the excess of such amount over $1,000,000.

If you die with 500k in assets, which by the way, you’ve already paid taxes on, the Feds swoop in and steals $160k of the families assets. It is truly outrageous that any Senator or House Representative, claiming to have conservative principles, would vote for this kind of blatant Government theft.

If John Boehner does a run around of the conservative wing of the house, making a deal with the liberal Democrats, he should be labeled a traitor to the cause and ran out of the his leadership position. Making a terrible deal with the opposition, in order to raise taxes, is certainly not leadership. Far from it!

Conservatives have just been betrayed by the Senate. Let us hope we won’t be betrayed by our supposed representatives in the house.