Marilinda Garcia for Congress

Fusionism is making it's first official endorsement of 2014: Marilinda Garcia for Congress in NH's Second Congressional District. Marilinda is bright, personable, well-spoken and committed to smaller, responsible government, a realistic and less interventionist foreign policy based on clear US interests, and a responsible, measured backing away from some of the more insidious aspects of the ACA. Her votes against the proposed casinos in NH seem to have less to do with Nanny-State regulatory instincts than with thwarting Concord Democrats' search for an all purpose ATM to grow government in the libertarian-minded Granite State. Although our impression is that she considers herself more of a conservative than a libertarian, it is also our judgment that she is the type of conservative that can and would do a lot to strengthen the conservative-libertarian alliance. An advocate of school choice (she was herself home-schooled), she seems like the type of politician that wants to see more hot-button cultural questions returned to the civil society where they belong, rather than having government "lead" the way on them, which is the basis of the fusionism conservative-libertarian detante (see here: And while Fusionism does not endorse identity politics of any kind, it cannot be denied that as a young, pro-life, Hispanic woman, Garcia's presence in Congress would go a long way to shatter many stereotypes about those on the right. Good luck Marilinda. We can't get Ann Kuster--the self-dubbed biggest Obama supporter in Congress--out of Washington fast enough.

IRS Email Scandal - Where's the Outrage?

Generally, I think conservatives are a little thin-skinned when it comes to media-bias. Yes, most of the major media outlets are all in the tank for the lefties, but the game of saying "imagine if our guy did that?" is a little tired, and often overblown. BUT, with that disclaimer out of the way: Imagine if our guys had done this! Imagine if in 2005-06 it came to light that the IRS had been targeting liberal groups in the '04 election for "heightened" scrutiny. Then imagine that a political appointee of Bush's at the IRS had "accidentally" "lost" all these emails. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it's my right-wing bias shining through, but I have a very hard time believing that we'd be talking about anything else. Which would be appropriate, after all. This is a horrible scandal, whoever is behind it. It's actually one of those things that is terrible on it's own, even if there was no mal-intent by elected officials because it shakes the very foundation of our First Amendment Freedoms. Do I feel like I am free to espouse my beliefs without fear of governemnt reprisal? Not really. I do this blogging on a semi-anonymous basis for a reason, you know (I can't even MAKE it fully anonymous, thanks NSA!). I run a business, and I don't think it's fair to my partners if our business is punished by elected officials because I publicly espouse "wrong" views. I'd like to run for office someday, but I've resolved not to do it until I either retire or sell my business. You might say I'm being paranoid, and maybe I am. But then a scandal like this comes along and seems to validate my fears. Big Brother really is watching and dolling out punishments for non-conforming views. But what REALLY makes it scary is not that it happened--I expect that, humans being fallible and all, this type of abuse is power is inevitable--but that all the Democrats simply yawn and say "so what"!! The chilling effect that this sort of abuse of power and the fourth estate's acceptance of it has on the polity is a story that has received almost no attention, even on the right. Make no mistake, the Bush Administration had it's fair share of power abuses too--I'm no great Bush apologist as you may have guessed--but at least when he overstepped his bounds there were howls about it from the major media outlets. It's the silence from the media about the IRS scandal that's the most upsetting. Even the coverage it DOES get--from the right-wing echo chambers--seems focused on political point scoring. I have not seen one story that focuses on the fallout that this sort of thing (along with the NSA spying scandal) has on people like me: civic-minded Americans who would like to serve their community in some capacity, but fear that by harboring political views out of step with theose currently in charge they will be singled out for harassment by government agencies. Even those who DO care about the scandal don't seem much to care about that.