The best symbol of the grassroots worker I can think of is the Republican Assembly… [NFRA’s] thousands of dedicated men and women are the ones who turn all those modernistic campaign devices into real votes.
“[NFRA] provides the nucleus of the Republican candidate’s volunteer work brigade. I know from personal experience. It’s hard to imagine my campaigns being anywhere near as successful as they were without the dedication of Republican Assembly members.
“I urge you to join today.
Like my precious friends Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston, I am proud to be a member of the Republican Assemblies. There was a time when we in Hollywood fought Communism and believed in America. Now the liberals seem to run everything and want to destroy all that we fought for. But the NFRA isn’t afraid of that fight, and it grows stronger every day, and I am honored to be involved with people who truly understand what America is all about.
We are engaged in a social, political and cultural war, in our country and even in our own party. The Republican Assemblies are some of the most effective forces in that war, and I applaud your work.
The Republican Assemblies are unafraid, to stand up for principle or to stand up to the establishment.
The NFRA fights tirelessly to elect a strong, grassroots Republican Party leadership. The more they succeed, the more we’ll see real change in America.
Now is the time for Patriots to mobilize. The NFRA is a great vehicle for taking back our country.
If you picked up a Coke bottle and saw a rat’s head in the bottom, you’d never think about Coke the same way again. Republicans who vote for tax increases and bigger government destroy the Republican brand name in exactly the same way. It is the job of the Republican Assemblies to defend the brand Reagan built, and stop the people who are ruining it.
As a famous Californian once said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” That’s why, now more than ever, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies is looked upon as one of the preeminent guardians of Ronald Reagan’s legacy, providing a powerful, unwavering voice for conservative principles amid the pandemonium of modern politics. Their advocacy is vital to our party’s future.
When conservatives took back America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, from the liberal leadership which had hijacked it, we used the same strategies and tactics that make the NFRA so potent a force today. Those strategies worked flawlessly then, and they’ll work as conservatives assert themselves in the Republican Party today.
In a political world of rapid changing institutions, the National Federation of Republican Assemblies stands as an anchor of principles on which conservative political leaders can depend. I am proud to be a member of the California Republican Assembly and to stand with Republican Assemblies all across America as they take back our party for true conservatives and stand for the values we hold dear.
The Republican Assemblies are truly a force for renewal within the Republican Party.
The Republican Assemblies are the conscience of the Republican Party.
Unlike too many other Republicans today, [the Republican Assemblies] stand strongly for the moral foundation of our Republic, which is that we are created equal and endowed by our Creator, not by our leaders, with our rights.
I am honored to stand with the National Federation of Republican Assemblies, one of the strongest voices for conservative values and a revitalized Republican Party in America.
If you want to see Reagan conservatives running the Republican Party, then the NFRA is where you need to be.
The NFRA can play a major role in the remaking of our Party. It can certainly be the organizational power behind the Tea Parties, working with those groups to give organizational effect to their outrage and passion.
The Republican Assemblies were the Tea Party movement before there was a Tea Party.
While many so-called Republican leaders would surrender the Culture War and sell out our sovereignty, the NFRA is a bastion of hope standing against them, and standing for a Constitutionalist America.
The NFRA endorsed me early, and it made a huge difference in the outcome of my race. Why? Because the Republican Assemblies are the real grassroots, the true conservatives, the soul of the Republican Party. And if you want more Marco Rubios, more Nikki Haleys and more Sharron Angles, getting involved in the Republican Assemblies is the way to make it happen.
The Republican Assemblies work tirelessly for conservative candidates and legislation.
The NFRA has never been more important than it is right now. We no longer have the luxury to nominate Republicans who, once elected, undermine the principles of individual freedom and limited government that define our party. Republican Assemblies across the country have kept the conservative movement alive and the future of our party and of our country ultimately depends on their success.
I’ve been a Republican all my life, was a precinct committeewoman for 16 years, president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Women for five years, attended every Republican National Convention starting in 1952, and served on the Platform Committee in 1984. I’m proud to be a charter member of the NFRA because I know it is doing the absolutely necessary work of restoring the Republican Party to its proper position of leadership for authentic conservative principles.
The NFRA is the flagship of constitutionalist conservatism within the Republican Party. It is intent on making sure the federal government has limited powers and the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. If we, the people, are to arrest the Obama march to collectivism, social democracy and an imperial presidency, we must swell the ranks of the NFRA and maintain its status as a principled defender of liberty.
When I was a high school student, Phyllis Schlafly’s book, A Choice, Not an Echo, was an important influence on my political direction. Today I support the NFRA for that same reason. The Republican Party must be more than just a cheaper, slower echo of the Democrats: it must be a distinct choice, for conservative values and for a future of freedom. If you long for that choice, then you should join the NFRA.
We need more people like you [the Republican Assemblies] who truly believe in the Constitution, in liberty and in standing up to an establishment that believes in neither.
The loyal patriots of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies…stand for the enduring principles that have made our Nation great. I thank the NFRA for standing at the ready to defend freedom and liberty no matter what the cost. Real hope is alive in the NFRA.Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the SS Chinese Economy
“Starting from this year, we have lowered the target of economic growth,” Vice President Xi Jinping told the Irish Times in an interview published Saturday. “This will help reduce the pressure in terms of price, energy, resources and the environment.”
Xi, slated to become China’s next ruler at the end of this year, has in recent days also dismissed concerns about his country’s economy. As he told the Dublin paper, “The slowdown in China’s economic growth was, to a large extent, the result of our own macro-control measures.”
Feeling better? It’s not likely that Beijing in fact intended the economy to falter last month. Electricity consumption, the best indicator of Chinese economic activity, declined 7.5 percent. China’s aggregate financing, another good signal, collapsed, falling by almost half. New lending is the lowest it has been in five years.
Bellwether car sales? They tumbled 23.8 percent. Property prices were off for the fifth-straight month. Exports and imports were both down. Especially important, it appears that demand from consumers for foreign goods skidded. Foreign direct investment fell 0.3 percent, the third-straight month of decline, due largely to troubles in Europe.
What’s going up? Perhaps the most hopeful sign is that inflation last month jumped upwards, to 4.5 percent from December’s 4.1 percent. The spike is an indication of strong retail sales for everyday items in anticipation of the Lunar New Year holiday, which came early this year.
Of course, the generally weak results were in part due to the fact that there were four fewer workdays last month compared to January 2011, but these figures were much worse than analysts expected.
In an apparent response to the January numbers, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, announced Saturday that it was cutting the bank reserve-requirement ratio by 50 basis points effective the 24th, the second reduction since last November. There were six ratio increases last year. Many had expected the PBOC to drop the ratio before the Lunar New Year, but instead it used open-market operations to supply short-term funds to the banks in advance of the long break.
The central bank’s move is expected to make 400 billion yuan — about $63.5 billion — available for lending, but it’s not entirely clear that the big banks will repeat past behavior by lending all of the additional funds at their disposal. Even China’s exuberant bankers are starting to figure out what “ghost cities” are doing to their balance sheets.
In the meantime, Vice President Xi is projecting a confident image to the international community. “China’s economy will maintain stable growth,” he said on Friday while in Los Angeles on the last leg of his U.S. tour. “There will be no so-called hard landing.”
His upbeat words seem to reflect the thinking inside the central government. After all, the most that technocrats are willing to do is announce a second reduction in the reserve-requirement ratio. They are not taking more effective measures, like cutting interest rates or resorting to fiscal stimulus.
Why the inaction in face of January’s atrocious results? Some analysts say Beijing is concerned about reigniting inflation, and others believe the technocrats do not want to overshoot the mark like they did in 2008 and 2009, when they panicked and dumped far too much money into the economy. Perhaps there is simply a lack of consensus and the weak Premier Wen Jiabao will not step in to resolve differences. Moreover, the upcoming leadership transition looks like it is already inhibiting action. Whatever the reason, now it appears Beijing will merely continue to “fine tune” the economy, arranging the deck chairs.
So what is the government’s growth target for this year? Xi did not say, but government researchers have told Reuters the new goal is 7.5 percent. Beijing has always met its target by wide margins, so it looks like central technocrats are really expecting growth in the low 8s, down somewhat from 2011′s 9.2 percent. Yet after such a slow start this year, 7.5 percent growth will be hard to achieve. With an economy expanding in the low single digits — if it is growing at all — we would normally expect Beijing to take significant action.
So what is the worst economic indicator of all? The fact that Chinese officials are doing so little at this crucial moment.
Editor's Note: We have reproduced here in full text of "Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the SS Chinese Economy" by Gordon C. Chang from Forbes.com. We encourage you to visit the original.
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