High Minded Commentary

One of the things that I love about the Internet

2011-07-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

People can make complete fools of themselves...and the rest of us can laugh.

Who wants to shut the government down?

2011-02-04T05:27:00.000-08:00

I've seen more than a handful of different articles similar to this one in The Hill, all trying to figure out which side to blame should the government end up being shut down over Congress' inability to agree on a budget. They all basically say the same thing:

The public does not want the government to shut down. If it does, there will be political hell to pay for the party at fault.
Democrats are the ones pushing the shut down narrative, as they believe that the public will blame Republicans.
Republicans are running from the shut down narrative, as they apparently agree with Democrats that it is the GOP that will take the blame.

I think that both parties are missing a point that I find rather obvious: while the public may not want to shut the government down, they definitely want the government to cut spending. Republicans, it seems, are already forgetting that they were given a forceful mandate to go to Washington and cut. If the government is shut down because Democrats still haven't gotten that message, hang it around their necks.

Rather than running from the narrative that the government may end up shut down, Republicans should point out the obvious: the government only gets shut down if Democrats don't agree to spending cuts. The public wants spending cuts, so Republicans need to fight to make sure that happens. If Democrats obstruct the will of the people, make sure that the people know who it was that wouldn't cut spending.

Quotes like this from Sen. Paul cause me a great deal of concern:

“I don’t think anybody wants a government shutdown or the government to default,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a member of the Senate Tea Party Caucus.

Paul also said that keeping government funding at 2010 funding levels is unacceptable but he’s not willing to force a shutdown to push back against Democrats.

“Nobody is saying that’s what we want,” Paul said. “We want reform of the budget process. We want a balanced budget. We want less spending.”

Note the part that I emphasized. Granted, this isn't a direct quote from Paul, but it certainly seems consistent with the messaging coming out of the Republican caucus.

"We want spending cuts, but it the Democrats fight to keep them from happening, we're going to give up rather than risk a fight over who shut down the federal government."

The time for being wimps is over, Republicans. It's time to fight. If we can't make cuts now, in this climate with the people as angry and engaged as they are, then we're never going to be able to make them.

What is the Obama administration so afraid of?

2011-02-03T17:03:00.000-08:00

I can't be the only one to find this interesting.

The Obama Administration wants to bide its time on its legal defense of health care reform. In a statement to reporters Thursday morning, spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler says the Department of Justice is opposed to calls -- by Republicans and some Democrats -- for an expedited Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the health care law's individual mandate.

"The Department continues to believe this case should follow the ordinary course of allowing the court of appeals to hear it first so the issues and arguments concerning the Affordable Care Act can be fully developed before the Supreme Court decides whether to consider it," she says.

If anyone stands to benefit from having health care reform get fast-tracked to the Supreme Court, it is certainly the administration. Consider:

States and the federal government are already implementing the new law. Every court decision or state action against health care reform slows down implementation and causes further uncertainty.
The longer the issue takes to get before the Supreme Court, the more traction Republicans are gaining with the "un-Constitutional" argument.
With a looming re-election campaign, Obama is the one person that should want the Constitutionality of his signature piece of legislation settled.

So why are they asking the courts to take their time? Could it be that they are not as confident as they claim regarding the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? Could they be hoping for another SCOTUS retirement or vacancy before the issue reaches the court?

Jimmy Carter is being sued for lying in his book

2011-02-03T11:09:00.000-08:00

You can't make this stuff up.

The suit accuses Carter and his publisher of violating New York consumer protection laws because they engaged in “deceptive acts in the course of conducting business” and alleges that they sought enrichment by promoting the book “as a work of non-fiction.”

In a press release, one of the attorneys, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner stated: "The lawsuit will expose all the falsehoods and misrepresentations in Carter's book and prove that his hatred of Israel has led him to commit this fraud on the public. He is entitled to his opinions but deceptions and lies have no place in works of history."

They're suing for $5 million, which I find disappointing. Presumably, the suit is to correct falsehoods perpetrated by Carter in his book, to have the book classified from here on out as fiction. Suing for such a large sum, however, damages the plaintiff's credibility and just makes them look money-hungry.

Hat tip: The Corner

Patterico (wrongly) makes the case for practicality

2011-02-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

Patterico is one of the blogs that I consider a must-read for conservatives. He is no only intelligent, but also an entertaining writer. That being said, I find myself taking issue with his post on the vote to repeal health care reform in the Senate. Specifically, Patterico uses this vote to make the case for voting for the most "electable" Republican, even if this means supporting a RINO, because party line votes matter.

Something to keep in mind the next time the “Real Conservatives” support a hard-line Republican in a state that elects only moderate Republicans. When the “Real Conservatives” try to tell you that there is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE!!!!!!11!1!! between the “RINO” they are opposing and the Democrat they are about to get elected, remember votes like this.

To be blunt, Mike Castle would have been vote #48 for repeal. Chris Coons was vote #51 against. And Christine O’Donnell? Didn’t vote and was never going to be voting.

But hey. There is no difference between Chris Coons and Mike Castle. So please. Ignore electoral reality and keep backing the True Conservatives in the blue states.

Just please don’t come whining to us realists when you keep losing votes like this. Thank you.

Patterico's argument sounds logical enough, but I think that he's missing the larger point from a conservative's perspective: in a two party system, neither party has a vested interest in what their base thinks. Conservatives will, the Republican Party presumes, always vote Republican by default. Therefore, the only potential for growth in the party is by going after moderates. This means that the only way for conservatives to make their voice heard and to get candidates that adhere to their values is to not vote for RINOs.

What Patterico is missing is that as long as conservatives are willing to vote for the GOP candidate irrespective of that candidate's conservative credentials, the party has a vested interest in electing moderates. It is only when conservatives make their voice heard by either electing conservatives in the primary or not voting for the moderate in the general, that the party is forced to pay attention to their base.

I realize that we have a long way to go before the party begins to reflect the wishes of its base, and there will surely be many lost votes along the way, but Patterico's strategy can only result in more moderates in Congress. "The O'Donnell Strategy" of electing the most conservative candidate in the primary regardless of the electoral consequences in the general, can only have the long term effect of a more conservative Congress.

Let there be a primary

2011-01-24T06:21:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Rubin expands on a point originally made by Bill Kristol regarding the 2012 Presidential race: stop trying to narrow the field.

There is a natural desire among political parties to have their candidate determined early. This is understandable, as at first glance an embattled primary campaign means spending lots of money, bruising political attacks from primary opponents, and the appearance of a party that is not unified.

However, the reasons for a primary a competitive primary are far more compelling. Yes, it means that candidates have to spend money early, but it also means that you're selecting the best candidate with the broadest base of support within the party. Rather than having a select few at the top of the totem pole picking the candidate that they think will be the best, a candidate that wins a contested primary is, by definition, the candidate that appeals to the largest number of the party faithful.

Additionally, primary battles mean tested candidates. A candidate that makes through a hard-fought primary has been through the wringer, had negative ads run against them, and had to learn how to handle themselves under fire.

No one is going to beat Obama with an untested neophyte. A candidate will need to be fielded that can withstand what will surely be a relentless string of attacks not only from the Obama machine, but also from the mainstream media.

It's good to hear more mainstream outlets picking up on the fact that primary elections exist for a reason, and that they're a good thing.

On the Giffords shooting and the First Amendment

2011-01-09T08:38:00.000-08:00

The response from certain circles to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was predictably vile. Rather than wait for facts to emerge or even until we knew whether the Congresswoman was dead or alive, liberals seeking to score political points immediately pounced, accusing the Tea Party in general and Sarah Palin in particular of engaging in "violent rhetoric" that incited this senseless act of violence. Now that facts are emerging regarding the suspect that suggest that he was really just a lunatic and doesn't appear to subscribe to any particular philosophy, we still continue to hear about the problems with our political rhetoric and how we need to tone it down.

While everyone engaged in politics should be aware that words have meaning, and no one should ever speak irresponsibly without considering what consequences their speech may have, to suggest that using terms like "target," "attack," or even "Second amendment remedy" should somehow be off limits is not only ridiculous, but dangerous.

The left is attempting to exploit a tragic shooting perpetrated by a deeply disturbed individual to silence their political opposition - pure and simple. The goal isn't to remove "violent rhetoric" from politics but, rather, to remove opposition to their policies entirely. If they can convince the public that Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party movement generally are somehow dangerous and irresponsible, then they discredit the movement entirely. The left that so rabidly defends the First Amendment rights of pedophiles is seeking to take that very same freedom of speech from its political opponents.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how free societies die. Just as the federal government exploited the tragedy of 9/11 to create a massive federal bureaucracy designed to spy on American citizens and infringe on our liberty, liberals would love nothing more now than to exploit this tragic shooting to silence their political opposition.

The shooting in Arizona yesterday should be a time of mourning, prayer, and possibly a discussion of how best to keep our elected officials safe. It should not be an opportunity for liberals to misrepresent their opponents in an effort to silence them.

The first failure of the Republican Congress

2011-01-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

It appears that House Republicans are now backing away from their pledge to cut $100 billion from the federal budget.

House Republicans are backing away from their pledge to cut $100 billion from the federal budget.

GOP aides say Republicans will still look to make significant cuts to spending, but the whole idea of cutting $100 billion was based on the premise that President Obama’s full-year 2011 budget would be enacted.

A couple of points are to be made here. First, and this is something that I caution people about all of the time, is that it is important to understand the process and the realities of legislating before making commitments like this. At the very best, House Republicans look foolish for making a commitment and then retracting it at the last minute citing legislative circumstances that most Americans won't understand.

Second, as far as I am concerned this is the first major disappointment from the new Congress. Cutting $100 billion from a $3.5 trillion budget wasn't a "significant cut" to start with, and now we're told they won't make that goal. This just goes to show that we have yet another class of Congressman that don't want to do the real work that it's going to take to make real cuts. We need surgeons in there slicing and dicing every line item, making sure that every program is efficient, necessary, and Constitutional. Instead, we have politicians that don't want to make any constituency angry, and we just can't afford that kind of governance anymore.

This year, I make resolutions

2010-12-31T09:59:00.000-08:00

I've never been one to make New Year's Resolutions. However, given the trajectory that the last couple of years have begun, I've decided that this year might be a good one to resolve to make a few changes in my life. Therefore, here are my resolutions for 2011, in order of their importance to me.

Write more.  Writing is something that I love, and I'm told that I do it reasonably well. However, it is also a discipline, and discipline isn't really my thing. As you can see by perusing either this blog or my other one, I very easily allow writing to fall by the wayside. Therefore, starting in 2011, I'm hoping to become a more disciplined writer in order to produce a higher volume, which should also make me better at it.

Be more focused.  This one relates to my career. The last year has been somewhat schizophrenic on that front as I've ventured into a few new areas but not really settled into one. I'm hoping to bring some focus and stability in 2011.

Be a better husband and father.  My wife and kids are everything to me, and I fear that I don't take enough time to show them that. I've recently become painfully aware that my kids are getting older. While this brings a whole new realm of enjoyment as we're able to do more things, it also brings some sadness as the reality that she will not always be my "little girl" and he will not always be my "buddy" has begun to sink in. I really thought of this on Christmas Day as my son and I sat and built Lego structures together. On one hand, I relished the fact that he's finally old enough to enjoy what was one of my favorite toys growing up. On the other, his constant instance that he could do it without me was saddening. Our moments with our family are limited, and I intend to make the most of them in 2011.

Be more faith centered.  As with everything in my life lately, my spiritual life has been all over the place. I don't quite have the whole religion thing figured out yet, although I'm willing to bet that none of us ever will, but I definitely know that I need to do a better job of making my faith a cornerstone of my life. If I can figure out how to do this, all of the other things on this list, I'm quite confident, will be sure to follow.

DADT - and the flood gates open

2010-10-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

And this is precisely what I was concerned about regarding allowing homosexuals in the military. Now, instead of having a reasoned discourse in Congress, where hearings can be held about how best to accommodate gay individuals that want to serve, we have open homosexuals serving in the military.

This doesn't do anyone any good whatsoever. It's bad for the gay people that enlist now, because chances are that this ruling will be reversed, and then those individuals will be thrown back out of the service. It's no good for the military, because now it really has become nothing more than a testing ground for a social experiment. It's just a bad way to do public policy - by judicial fiat.

Unfortunately, both sides were too unreasonable to be honest about the issue and really try to find a solution. The right was too rabid in its crusade to eliminate society of all things gay, and the left was too rabid in its quest to convince us all that we really, deep down are all gay to some degree and so it must be ok. The result is that gay people will be hurt, the military will be hurt, and we've missed an opportunity to have a reasoned, honest debate about a very real issue.

O'Donnell schools Coons on the First Amendment

2010-10-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

The lefty blogs are all abuzz with the news that (*gasp*) Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell didn't know that "separation of church and state" isn't in the Constitution. Think Progress is a good representation of what is spreading through the left side of the blogosphere. Here's the exchange, via CBS News:

Coons said that creationism, which he considers “a religious doctrine,” should not be taught in public schools due to the Constitution’s First Amendment. He argued that it explicitly enumerates the separation of church and state.

“The First Amendment does?” O’Donnell asked. “Let me just clarify: You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?”

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” Coons responded, reciting from memory the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“That’s in the First Amendment…?” O’Donnell responded.

I suppose one could argue that O'Donnell is questioning, at the very end, whether or not the Establishment Clause is in the First Amendment, but most thinking people would understand that she simply misspoke. Her larger point was that the First Amendment says nothing about "separation of church and state," and she's 100% accurate.

Wait, you don't think that she was merely misspeaking at the end? You think she really doesn't know what's in the First Amendment? Michelle Malkin has news for you...news that the media apparently doesn't want to cover. That's right, there was more to this exchange than what you're hearing on cable news. Michelle points to a Politico story, with this little snippet at the end of their story about what an absolute dullard Christine O'Donnell is.

O’Donnell was later able to score some points of her own off the remark, revisiting the issue to ask Coons if he could identify the “five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.”

Coons named the separation of church and state, but could not identify the others — the freedoms of speech, press, to assemble and petition — and asked that O’Donnell allow the moderators ask the questions.

“I guess he can’t,” O’Donnell said.

So which of these two candidates is it that doesn't understand the First Amendment to the Constitution?

As to the substance of the "separation of church and state" argument, O'Donnell is entirely correct. Liberals always ignore the second half of the Establishment Clause, "or prohibit the free exercise thereof." I'm pretty sure that banning prayer in schools, removing the Ten Commandments from courthouse lawns, etc., are all prohibitions on the exercise of religion. Our founders were very intentionally trying to keep the government out of religion, not the other way around.

O'Donnell understands that. Coons doesn't even know what the Constitution says about it.

Voters want a third party

2010-10-13T04:32:00.000-07:00

A new poll says that a majority of voters think that a third party would be a good thing for American politics. From The Hill.

A majority of likely voters think a viable third party would be good for American politics, according to a new poll of likely voters in 10 key open House districts.

Those voters are split, however, on whether the Tea Party should be that alternative.

Fifty-four percent of respondents in The Hill 2010 Midterm Election Poll said they’d like an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.

That number rose to 67 percent for self-identified independents. But even a plurality in the established parties — 49 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of Republicans — said they’d like another choice.

Given the climate, this doesn't come as much of a surprise. People are angry and frustrated with our political system, and this includes the fact that there are only two viable parties. I think that a large part of the frustration among average voters comes from the fact that they feel that both parties are driving us off of the same cliff. One party may be driving a little slower, but the end result will be the same.

The problem becomes, then, what does the third party look like? The article above indicates that voters are split on whether or the Tea Party should be the third choice. I'm sure that there are some lefties out there that want a party more liberal than the Democrat Party, just as there are Republicans (myself included) that want a more conservative Republican Party.

And thus we run into the problem with third parties in America. You can't just have a third party. You have to have lots of other parties. This is, in fact, something that we already have. There is a long list of alternative political parties, but they are seldom heard from and their candidates for office rarely do well enough to warrant much attention.

This isn't any kind of failure on their part. Rather, the problem stems from egregious ballot access requirements in addition to the fact that those requirements vary so widely from state to state. The problem to the two party rule in America is not simply to create a third party (or even multiple additional parties). The solution to this problem (if you think it a problem, which some obviously don't) is to level the playing field in terms of ballot access so that all parties are treated equally.

Angle brings in $14 million - spells doom for Democrats

2010-10-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at Sharron Angle's race against Harry Reid as kind of a litmus test for how things are going to go nationally. I love Sharron. She seems principled, she tells it like it is, and she's got guts. Unfortunately, those are exactly the kind of people that the left has an easy time painting as lunatics. Therefore, if the Majority Leader of the Senate can't make Angle look like enough of a wacko to beat her, Democrats are in deep, deep trouble.

Sharron reported raising $14 million in the third quarter, one of the best quarters in the history of the country. Oh, yeah, and she's up in the polls.

Say it with me, everyone: electoral bloodbath.

Campaign Finance in the 21st Century

2010-10-12T10:53:00.001-07:00

Much is being said in the 2010 campaign cycle about outside spending on political candidates. Most recently, the Democrats have been making much of some foreign contributions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Democrats have accused the Chamber of using that foreign money as part of the millions of dollars that the Chamber has spent trying to help Republicans to get elected, which would be illegal. The Chamber, of course, denies any wrongdoing, and the majority of the evidence would seem to indicate that they are right.

What seems missing from this conversation, however, is any discussion of the appropriateness of our current campaign finance system. The United States political system has been slowly chipping away at the rights of individuals and organizations to participate in the process in a meaningful way. Whether we're talking about capping contributions or increased reporting (always disguised as “transparency”), the right of citizens to spend their own money to influence elections is slowly disappearing, and it is to the detriment of the republic.

I know, we're all supposed to believe that those evil “special interests” shouldn't be influencing our politics. But why not? Why shouldn't the organizations that are the most likely to be directly impacted by the outcome of an election have some say in said outcome? Why shouldn't they even have a disproportionate say? The recent Supreme Court decision, commonly referred to as the Citizens United decision, seemed to recognize the fact that the corporations and organizations with an interest in electoral outcomes should have some say in elections. Not only that, but these are the organizations that probably have the most expertise as it relates to which candidate will actually be best suited for office.

I know that none of these things are supposed to be said in polite society, as we're all to believe that the homeless man down the street is just as critical in the voting both as the CEO of a major company. Alas, count me in the minority, I suppose. I want the organizations and individuals with not only an interest in what happens politically but also some knowledge about the ramifications of elections to be the ones deciding these outcomes, not the welfare queens in our inner cities bussed to the polls by Democrats to ensure electoral victory.

Another issue that gets lost in all of the discussion about how to keep “big money” out of our politics is the question of who really benefits from all of these cumbersome campaign finance laws. We're told that we need extensive reporting requirements because then we'll know who's influencing our elected officials. We're told that we need to cap contributions because that way we'll be able to make sure that our politicians' votes aren't being bought. This all sounds good to the average voter, but in the real world the impact of these rules is much more nefarious.

Increased reporting, for example, simply makes sure that incumbent politicians know who is donating to their challenger. Your name, or the name of your company, shows up on the form of a challenger to an incumbent, and maybe that grant application that you had pending coincidentally gets denied. Maybe it's suddenly determined that an IRS audit is in order, or that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to do an inspection of your business. You get the point. Contributing money to challengers to the political establishment in the light of day can have real consequences, and the establishment knows that.

In the case of caps on contributions, we must go back to the pitfalls of reporting to see how these benefit incumbents. Again, no one wants to appear on a challenger's campaign report, so very few people are willing to give a challenger money. Cap those contributions and it becomes next to impossible for a challenger to raise enough money to run a competitive campaign. Incumbents, however, have no problem getting people to appear on their report, so they are able to amass long lists of contributors, all of whom give the maximum. Without these caps, challengers can solicit large donations from a small number of courageous individuals and possibly run a competitive campaign.

I don't have room for it in this column, but the real result of all of these regulations is that we create organizations such as George Soros' Moveon.org. We turn our political system over to the millionaires. This is the exact opposite of what our goal was, as tends to happen when government intervenes. They achieve the opposite of the intended result. Perhaps instead of decrying the involvement of “special interests” in politics and taking a fine-tooth comb to the Chamber's finances, we should instead be changing the question. Are our campaign finance laws doing what they were intended to do and, is what they were intended to do even a good thing?

BOMBSHELL: Fiorina thinks Palin qualified to be POTUS

2010-10-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

Politico provides the details.

California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina might not think Sarah Palin is qualified to run a major corporation, but she said Monday night the former Alaska governor has the credentials to be the nation’s chief executive.

“I certainly think she’s qualified to be president of the United States,” Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican nominee for Senate, said during an appearance on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

Can we please stop with this stupid question? The Constitution makes clear that the only "qualifications" anyone needs are these:

citizen
35 years old
lived here for 14 years

And that's it. Now, I know that there are those that argue that we live in such complicated times that we need people that are qualified (please read those italics in your whiniest of voices, because that's how I intended them).

To cede that point, though is to cede that we must have big government. Small government, by definition, cannot be complicated. Therefore, whenever we start to talk about what "qualifies" someone to be President, we are basically saying that we're all too dumb to govern ourselves and we need to elect people that are so much smarter than us if we're going to survive as a nation.

I think that myself, my neighbors, friends, etc. are all qualified to be President. To think otherwise is to succumb to the elitist mindset that the left wants you to have, because they are the elite, and therefore they will be the only ones qualified to govern.

Bill Clinton to campaign for Harry Reid

2010-10-11T16:26:00.000-07:00

This has to be viewed as a sign of fear from the Democrats. The Hill reports.

Former President Bill Clinton will travel to Nevada Tuesday to campaign for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Clinton, who has made frequent stops for Democratic candidates this cycle, will participate in a Las Vegas pre-early vote rally, according to Reid's campaign.

"The rally will highlight the clear choice Nevada voters have between Senator Reid’s track record fighting to create jobs and Sharron Angle’s extreme and dangerous agenda," the announcement says.

At this point in the game, Clinton is spending his time where the Democrats think it's close, and where they think that Bill can make a difference. Their internals obviously have this thing as winnable for Sharron Angle.

Obama admin tries to cover up real impact of health care reform

2010-10-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration is trying to cover up what's really going to happen now that health care reform has passed. Jeffrey Lord, writing in The American Spectator, blows the lid off of Scranton-gate. You have to read the whole article to really understand what's going on, but here's a quick summary:

Three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals are being sold. The CEO originally said that Obamacare was a factor, even using the word "absolutely"...twice.
In a follow-up statement, the CEO starts to walk back his first statement, omitting any mention of Obamacare as a reason for the sale of the hospitals.
A statement is released by Sister Carol, head of the Catholic Health Association, "correcting" accounts of the closing of these hospitals that name Obamacare as a cause (note that to this point, the only person that said this was the CEO of the hospitals).
A third statement is released by the hospital CEO using some of the same language as Sister Carol's statement, fully denouncing any attempts to name Obamacare as a factor in the closing of the hospitals.

What would possibly cause this CEO to retract his forceful statement that low reimbursements rate in Obamacare were a factor in the closing of three Catholic hospitals? What would possess the head of a national organization to weigh in on this? Consider these additional facts:

The three hospitals happen to reside in the Congressional districts of two Democrats, Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney, who voted for Obamacare and face tough re-election fights.
Sister Carol is a well-connected "social justice" lobbyist in Washington and was even one of only twenty-one individuals to receive one of the pens that President Obama used to sign Obamacare.

Oh, and to add just one more "coincidence" to this list, Vice President Biden just happened to show up in Scranton (also Biden's home town) today to campaign for Carney.

The Obama administration knows what we all knew before health care reform passed: hospitals are going to close under Obamacare. Our health care providers can barely keep their heads above water with the low reimbursement rates that they're already forced to accept under Medicaid. Now, under the new "reforms," we're going to be adding a whole lot more people to that system and lowering the reimbursement rate even further.

Make no mistake, the President knows that this is going to happen. If he didn't, they wouldn't be pushing back so hard in little ol' Scranton, PA. The Obama administration knows that they cannot allow this narrative to take hold or else the political fallout will be unstoppable as this happens to more and more hospitals all over the country.

More evidence that government will never shrink

2010-10-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

From John Cohen and Dan Balz, writing in the Washington Post.

A new study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University shows that most Americans who say they want more limited government also call Social Security and Medicare "very important." They want Washington to be involved in schools and to help reduce poverty. Nearly half want the government to maintain a role in regulating health care.

I've said this a million times. We're not going to get real change in government until the people of this country are willing to give up the programs that the politicians use to bribe us into giving them power. It's just that simple.

Charlie Crist governs to the left - pitches to the right

2010-10-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

Some comic relief. Crist throwing out the first pitch at the Rays-Rangers game.

H/T: Michelle Malkin

NV GOP State Senate leader endorses Reid over Angle

2010-10-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

This sounds like nothing more than sour grapes to me. Emphasis mine.

Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, today endorsed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his difficult re-election bid against Republican Sharron Angle.

In a statement, Raggio described Angle as an “ineffective” four-term assemblywoman who could not get along with others and said only Reid sought his endorsement.

Angle tried to oust Raggio in the 2008 Republican primary, but lost to the iconic Northern Nevada senator.

The article goes on and Raggio details his hatred for Angle. This is nothing more than the rough and tumble of politics, although it's certainly unfortunate for Sharron Angle.

Obama could be the big winner in 2010

2010-10-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

I was just talking to someone about this yesterday, and now Victor Davis Hanson, over at National Review Online, posits the same scenario.

And now? After November, Obama can only hope that he can outsource the messy work of cuts and budget balancing to the congressional Republicans. Chances are he will demagogue them as heartless while taking credit for an economic rebound once investors, businesses, and corporations see an end to Obamism and its gratuitous slurs against the wealthy, and thus start using their stockpiled trillions to rehire and buy equipment in 2011.

Actually, the focus of Hanson's piece is what went wrong with the Obama administration, and this paragraph is really just a throwaway paragraph about the future. But he makes a very important point. If Republicans take control of Congress, as there is at least a good chance that they will, the person that would benefit the most would be President Obama.

With Democrat majorities in Congress, there was no one to blame for our economic woes but other Democrats. If Republicans take control, Obama can watch them cut the budget and do all of the hard work necessary to get us out of the recession, demonizing them for doing so every step of the way. Then, when the economy is rebounding thanks to the policies implemented by Republicans in Congress, Obama can take the credit for a thriving economy.

Yes, it would be disingenuous and yes, Republicans will try to keep him from doing it. But the reality is that there's a solid chance that it will work.

If tax cuts expire - low income Americans hit the hardest

2010-10-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

The Hill reports the obvious.

Low-income workers stand to lose the most if lawmakers fail to reach a consensus on the Bush-era tax cuts, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation.

The report states that on Jan. 1 the doubling of the child tax credit, increased standard deductions and income credits and the creation of the 10 percent tax bracket — all of which primarily aimed at non-wealthy taxpayers — will vanish if gridlock persists in Washington.

While wealthier taxpayers pay more in taxes and stand to lose more money if the tax cuts expire, the impact on low-income taxpayers will be far greater because they live on slimmer margins.

I think anyone with an IQ above 30 could have figured this out, but expect this story to add fuel to the Democrat's fire as they continue to try to force Republicans to acquiesce and allow the tax cuts to expire for those making more than $250,000.

Rasmussen has Angle up on Reid

2010-10-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

Good news.

Republican challenger Sharron Angle has now moved to a four-point lead over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada’s bare-knuckles U.S. Senate race.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Nevada Voters shows Angle hitting the 50% mark for the first time since mid-August, while Reid earns 46% of the vote. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate in the race, and two percent (2%) more are undecided. (To see question wording, click here.)

If God gives me one...just one, please make it this one. Set aside the fact that she's running against total scumbag Harry Reid. Sharon Angle is the real deal, a true blue conservative in a country where far too few of those run for public office. She tells it like is. She's honest. She's principled. I would vote for Sharon Angle against almost anyone. It's only that much sweeter that she has a real shot at taking out a liberal like Reid, let alone the Majority Leader.

Angle's web site is here. Contribute here.

UPDATE: Dave Weigel points out that this is the first time since July that Angle is up over Reid in an average of Nevada polls.

Drug testing the unemployed

2010-10-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

I enjoy reading blogs from both sides of the aisle, as I feel that it is important to see the perspective of the other side, even if you adamantly disagree with it. One of the more liberal blogs that I read is The Washington Monthly's Political Animal, written by Steve Benen. Now, I rarely agree with anything that Mr. Benen writes, but I came across a post today that was just screaming for a response.

In a post published today entitled, Republicans still just don't like the unemployed, Benen takes to task Nikki Haley, a Republican running for Governor of South Carolina. What was Haley's offense? She is proposing that we drug test the unemployed prior to granting them benefits.

Benen glosses over what I consider some of the more substantive areas of disagreement as being almost meaningless. The issue of the cost and administration of these tests is given scant attention. Rather, Benen wants to focus on what he considers "most important."

But perhaps most important is the offensive underlying assumptions. At its core, Haley, Hatch, and those who agree with this are making a truly ridiculous assumption: those who've lost their jobs during tough economic times should necessarily be suspected of drug abuse. It doesn't matter if getting laid off wasn't your fault; it doesn't matter if there are no job openings in your area; it doesn't matter if you've never taken drugs a day in your life.

If you can't find work, it may very well be your fault -- because you might be some kind of addict. What do Haley, Hatch, and their cohorts base this suspicions on? Nothing but a twisted worldview.

Talk about making assumptions! No, genius, no one is assuming that everyone on unemployment is a drug addict. No one is even assuming that everyone on unemployment is taking drugs. What we are saying is that unemployment compensation funds for states all across the nation are drying up rapidly, requiring larger and larger subsidies from the federal government. With limited resources, it makes sense to give the benefits to people that aren't taking drugs, rather than leaving them out in the cold in favor of people that are taking them.

If nothing else, it's simply more practical. Most employers these days drug test, so if someone is taking drugs they are less likely to gain employment. If the goal is to get people back to work quickly, perhaps providing a little incentive to get people off of drugs is a good thing, yes?

There is a valid policy debate to be had about whether or not we should be drug testing people trying to collect unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, Steve doesn't want to engage in that debate. He would rather sling baseless accusations at Republicans about what he thinks motivates them. These are accusations, I might add, that in a Freudian way may expose more about Steve's internal biases, and his own opinions about the unemployed, than they do about Republicans.

Comments

2010-10-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, apparently I had to change a setting in Blogger in order to be notified when people are commenting. Contrary to what I thought, some of you are actually commenting on my posts...I just either wasn't seeing them or wasn't indicating that they are not, in fact, spam.

Please continue to comment (or begin to), and I promise I will try to be better at responding moving forward, provided that I have fixed this no-notification garbage.

Almost half of Tea Party members identify as part of the religious right

2010-10-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

And this is news...why? The American Values Survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute every two years, points out the obvious.

Nearly half (47%) also say they are part of the religious right or conservative Christian movement. Among the more than 8-in-10 (81%) who identify as Christian within the Tea Party movement, 57% also consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement.

First off, I'm actually surprised that it's only 47%. The Tea Party movement is made up of conservatives. While the issues that they have been focusing have largely been the fiscal ones, that doesn't change the fact that members of the group tend to be socially conservative, as well.

Expect the left to use this finding to try to scare independents into not trusting the Tea Party.

Pelosi speaks truth

2010-10-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

It's not often that I'll credit Nancy Pelosi with any shred of honesty, but here's a rare example.

"Any political party that can't exploit 9.5 percent unemployment ought to hang up their gloves," she says, knowing full well the GOP is punching, and hard.

Yep.

Romney and 2012

2010-10-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Given what he did to the Massachusetts health care system, is Mitt Romney still a credible candidate for the Presidency in 2012? Ramesh Ponnuru over at National Review hits the nail on the head.

I can speak only for myself: Romney was not my first choice, but he was my second. I never liked his Massachusetts health-care plan and said so at the time, but it didn’t render him unacceptable to me. He wasn’t running on a federal version of that plan, which would have rendered him unacceptable in my eyes.

He still isn’t. So what’s changed? Only the political context, which is to say: everything. It seems to me to be pretty important for conservatism that Republicans run on a platform of repeal-and-replace in 2012, and Romney does not seem like a credible carrier of that message. That is especially the case since he is so defensive about how well his Massachusetts reform is supposedly working out.

If Stupak and co. had held firm and the health-care bill had died in the House, things would look very different. The fact that Romney had supported a state-level policy that resembled Obamacare would still have been a mark against him, in my view, but the issue would not have had the importance it now has.

In my view, then, Romney’s health-care record is and should be a much bigger hurdle for him to overcome this time.

Health care reform, more than any other single issue, is what is motivating the electorate right now. Obama considers it as his premier accomplishment and Republicans view it as his Achilles' heel. It is the one issue where it is absolutely imperative that Republicans have a candidate that can credibly stand in opposition to the President. Romney is definitely not that person. Granted, I've never been a huge fan anyway, but he's definitely not the right candidate for 2012.

What does victory for the Tea Party look like?

2010-10-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

Read my latest over at the Center for American Heritage.

The Tea Party has won because it has begun the war to reclaim our nation’s heritage.

The Tea Party has made our founding documents cool again. Average citizens are now reading the Federalist papers and discussing them with their friends. Conversations are happening all over the nation about the proper role of the federal government. While health care reform and the economic stimulus package were the real eye-openers for the public, citizens are now going back and examining things like education and welfare spending and questioning whether or not the federal government should be involved in these areas at all.

This national conversation is just now beginning, and it will take time to move from talking about reform to actually achieving it. As the movement matures, the conversation will begin to shift toward those reforms that can truly return America to greatness. It will move beyond single issues like eliminating ear marks or repealing the health care bill. It will begin talking about transforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, about federal involvement in education, about tax codes, and about the proper size of our military.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but the fact that the conversation has finally started at a national level is something that the Tea Party can already count as success, no matter what happens on November 2nd.

The closing argument

2010-10-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich has some advice for Republicans running this year as to what their closing argument should be.

A closing argument is the central choice you want voters to have in mind as they head to the voting booths. It should be very simple and resonate at a personal, emotional level with the American people.

In 1980, Reagan’s closing argument was “morning in America” versus the malaise of Jimmy Carter.

In 1994, our closing argument was the Republican’s “Contract with America” versus decades of broken promises from the Democrats.

This year, the House Republican’s Pledge to America has set the stage for a powerful, symbolic closing argument for candidates seeking to unseat the left-wing, big spending, job killing Democrats: paychecks versus food stamps.

Newt lays out a strong argument, except I would have to quibble with the fact that the Pledge to America "set the stage for a powerful, symbolic closing argument." As I've said previously, I don't think that the Pledge goes as far as it needed to. Other than that, though, Republicans would probably do well to listen to Newt in this case.

H/T: The Corner

MSNBC Announces ‘Lean Forward’ (This Won’t Hurt a Bit) Campaign - By Daniel Foster - The Corner - National Review Online

2010-10-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

MSNBC Announces ‘Lean Forward’ (This Won’t Hurt a Bit) Campaign - By Daniel Foster - The Corner - National Review Online

MSNBC finally owns up to what we've all always know - it's a network dominated by "progressives." Shocker, I know.

My thoughts on the O'Donnell ad

2010-10-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

First, for those of you living under a rock that haven't seen it, here's the ad:

Personally, I think that it's a mistake. It speaks to an issue that probably got a whole lot more play nationally than it did in the state of Delaware. The whole "dabbled in witchcraft" attack was always a silly one, anyway, and it's one that I doubt the voters of the state put a whole lot of stock in.

Granted, I think that the campaign is trying to use this one ad, and this one issue, to respond a whole slew of attacks on Christine that she's too far right (or far out) to be in the United States Senate. I just think that there is a better way to go about it.

Address those attacks by presenting Christine as Senatorial, which this ad does the opposite of. This ad makes Christine look as silly as the attacks on her. The fact that she's addressing the attacks, and leading off her ad buy with "I am not a witch," screams amateur. A more substantive ad that presented Christine as a credible candidate for U.S. Senate would have, in my opinion, been much more effective.

A Tea Party for the Democrats?

2010-10-05T05:55:00.000-07:00

This is a theme that I return to a lot when I'm on the radio. The left needs its own Tea Party movement.

Ordinary leftists have a greater responsibility to the American experiment than they do to the politics of the moment. If things like socialized medicine really are the best choice for America, we will get there eventually. There is always next year to try for a favored policy, but power once lost to elites may never be recovered. The integrity of the system, protected by true representation, is the greater and more necessary good.

The real lesson of the Tea Party is “clean your own house first.” Leftists need to clean house of the unresponsive elites. As fiscal conservatives have learned, “at least better than the other guys” won’t do in the long run. In the end, it won’t matter if they defeat the “corrupt” or “corporate controlled” Republican party if the Democratic party is composed of unrepresentative elites who answer to no one but their own.

Ordinary leftists have the responsibility to be as willing to attack the pillars of power in the Democratic party as the Tea Party has been to attack the pillars of power in the Republican party.

This wouldn't just be good for the left, it would be good for America. I argue incessantly that, contrary to popular belief, Americans don't want less partisanship...they want more. Not more in the sense of Republicans versus Democrats, but more conservative versus liberal.

We've reached a point in American politics where both parties strain to be more "moderate" than the other in the hopes of gaining the largest number of votes. This cheats the American public out of a sincere debate over philosophy. Rather than being able to choose the best of two paths forward, they are stuck choosing between takes on the same vision.

Hopefully, the Tea Party movement will return the Republican party to its core values. The Democrat party could benefit from a similar purging.

Spending is just never going to go down

2010-10-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, Peter Beinart is probably right. Long story short, Beinart is arguing that if Republicans gain majorities in November and actually follow through on the spending cuts that the Tea Party wants, the voters will go nuts and throw them all out of office.

And he's right.

Sadly, the public is completely addicted to government spending. We all want spending overall to go down...as long as it doesn't affect us in any way. The programs that we like are always very efficient, very necessary, and we don't want them cut. It's everyone else's program that's the problem.

I've told everyone that was willing to listen: if we really want to shrink government and reduce spending, it's going to hurt. Until the public wants the change bad enough that they're willing to undergo the pain necessary, we're just spinning our wheels.

Pledge to America: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2010-09-22T17:30:00.000-07:00

It's official. The Republicans have unveiled their Pledge to America, and reaction among the right appears to be mixed. On one hand, you have Erick Erickson at Redstate:

Yes, yes, it is full of mom tested, kid approved pablum that will make certain hearts on the right sing in solidarity. But like a diet full of sugar, it will actually do nothing but keep making Washington fatter before we crash from the sugar high.

It is dreck.

On the other hand, NRO:

All year long, conservatives have been pressuring Republicans to release a Contract with America for 2010 — an updated version of the campaign platform that the party unveiled before its 1994 sweep of Congress. Thursday morning, Republican congressmen are responding to that pressure by making a “Pledge to America.” The inevitable question will be: Is the pledge as bold as the Contract?

The answer is: The pledge is bolder. The Contract with America merely promised to hold votes on popular bills that had been bottled up during decades of Democratic control of the House. The pledge commits Republicans to working toward a broad conservative agenda that, if implemented, would make the federal government significantly smaller, Congress more accountable, and America more prosperous.

I've just finished reading through it, and I have to say that I'm pretty unimpressed for a few reasons.

As the NRO editors point out above, conservatives have been pushing for this for quite some time. Given the amount of time that this has taken to unveil, the effort seems pretty lame. Go to any local Tea Party gathering and you can probably get the same set of ideas listed in about twenty minutes.
The Pledge is primarily a political document, not a serious policy document. This is evidenced by the amount of time given to economic issues and the fact that very specific proposals for dealing with economic issues are given, while social issues are given short shrift. This is not because Republicans suddenly don't care about social issues but rather because polling shows that the public doesn't care about social issues right now. I'm certainly fine with Republicans unveiling a political document rather than a policy document, but lets call a spade a spade.
This is a pet peeve of mine: medical liability reform is not a federal issue. Enacting liability reform at the federal level is a violation of the Constitution, so I'll be interested to see how Republicans cite the Constitutional authority for that one, since Constitutional citations for all legislation is another aspect of the Pledge.
The section entitled 'Read the Bill' never actually says that they will read the bills. This is because anyone with even passing familiarity with how government actually works knows that it is physically impossible for legislators to read every single bill before they vote on it. They are briefed on the contents, read summaries, assign staff to read bills, etc., but there is no way that they can read each one individually.

There are a host of other issues that I have with some of the specifics, but these are the big ones. So in summary:

The Good: Republicans have given us a plan that they can not only campaign on, but can be held accountable for should they actually gain the majority.

The Bad: The plan is vague in places, gives shallow promises to social issues that are vitally important to conservatives, and at least one of its major components is blatantly un-Constitutional.

The Ugly: I can only speak for myself, but I would wager that a big chunk of the American people are with me on this. I don't trust these guys to actually do 90% of this. I think that this is a campaign gimmick that will last about 6 months if Republicans actually gain the majority. We will then quickly begin to hear all of the excuses as to why x can't be done or about how those dirty Democrats just won't cooperate. Republicans will walk away from this Pledge as they did with the Contract with America and only a handful of conservatives will even care to notice.

New GOP plan includes social issues

2010-09-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

Although, there was apparently something of a fight over it (emphasis mine).

An election year agenda being unveiled by House Republicans Thursday will include language affirming the party's support of "traditional marriage" and its opposition to abortion rights, House GOP sources tell POLITICO.

The document, to be unveiled at a hardware store in Sterling, Va., will include "a commitment to life and a commitment to marriage," one source said.

Two other sources cautioned that the language on marriage is likely to be in the preamble to a series of legislative goals and that an effort to put a bill along the lines of the Defense of Marriage Act into the package was rebuffed.

House Republicans had a spirited debate behind closed doors about the degree to which social issues should be included in the new agenda, and social conservatives have been pressing for the GOP to be more explicit in putting social issues in writing on this 2010 agenda.

The GOP and health care repeal

2010-09-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Chait takes issue with Republicans advocating for repealing Obamacare without proposing an alternatives. A few points worth responding to.

Remember, unlike 1994, Republicans could not afford to defend the health care status quo in 2010. The public demanded health care reform, and Republicans took the position that they favored some superior alternative proposal that would do all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff. Actually formulating a plan that satisfies those requirements is impossible.

No, the public did not demand "reform." The public wanted (wants) health care costs to go down. Obamacare achieved the exact opposite.

This plan, while totally immoral, seems like the shrewdest approach. If they can make the health care law fail by sabotaging its implemetation, the public is going to hold President Obama responsible for the results, and Republicans will benefit politically.

No, doing everything possible to stop the implementation of Obamacare is not immoral. Obamacare is immoral. Republicans are attempting to rescue the public from President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

I continue to be amazed that the Republican position is total oppositon to a board approving Medicare payment cuts and to research comparing the effectiveness of different procedures, thereby trimming away waste in the Medicare system. You can, I suppose, make a case that medical care is so important that we cannot allow a process to cut out even totally wasteful procedures -- interventions that do nothing to improve patient health -- for fear that this would somehow, some way, lead to rationing of needed care. But could anybody have imagined that the conservative party is the party making this argument?

Republicans are in total opposition to government bureaucrats making Americans' health care decisions for them. What's amazing isn't that Republicans are taking this position, but that the Democrats have abandoned it.

This piece is a very clear illustration of how completely disconnected the liberal elite is on the issue of health care. As I've discussed previously, Americans wanted costs to go down. Liberals "solved" this by simply shifting the costs, not reducing them. This wasn't the kind of health care reform that Americans wanted.

Please Sarah, don't run for POTUS

2010-09-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

I really, really hope that this isn't a sign that she's running (although I would be shocked if she didn't).

Will Sarah Palin use her Tea Party power to launch a run for president in 2012? Nobody knows, but her trip to Iowa on Friday may provide some clues.

Palin speaks at the Iowa Republican Party's Ronald Reagan Dinner in Des Moines, her influence among Tea Party activists strong after conservative candidates she backed won in Delaware and New Hampshire Senate primary races on Tuesday.

The former Alaska governor, who was Republican Senator John McCain's vice presidential running mate in the 2008 campaign, remains coy about whether she will join what could be a long list of challengers to Democratic President Barack Obama.

But her visit to Iowa for a speech at a high-profile party fund-raising event for November 2 congressional elections will doubtless feed speculation the self-styled "hockey mom" might seek the White House in 2012.

Why don't I want her to run? First, she has far too much baggage, I think. She's a rock star for conservatives right now. She raises tons of money. Her candidates win. I don't want her to run for President because it will more than likely diminish her reputation, whether she won or not. I also don't think that she would win, but even if she could, I'm not sure that I want her to. As anti-establishment as Sarah likes to pretend to be, she didn't get picked to be the VP candidate in 2008 because the establishment thought that she would buck them.

She's a great motivator, a great fundraiser and is doing a lot of good for the party. Hopefully, she recognizes that this is her role, not to be President. Why does everyone involved in politics come to the conclusion that they should run for office?

Please, Sara, don't run.

Shocker: Obamacare increased health care costs

2010-09-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

On Obamacare, Wilson was rude but right.

"As a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs -- we knew that," Obama said last week.

Of course he knew, but he wasn't saying so as he lobbied for the bill's passage. In his 2009 speech, Obama assured Americans the expense of extending coverage to the uninsured would be covered through cost cutting reforms.

In the six months since the president signed the bill, not one significant cost-cutting reform has been adopted. Congress, as predicted, avoided cutting Medicare reimbursement rates, a key component of Obama's projected savings.

Instead of declining, Medicare costs are expected to continue to rise at an average rate of 6.3 percent over the next decade.

And the pain to consumers is already being felt. Next week, the first mandates of Obamacare kick in, and will add 1 percent to 9 percent to insurance premiums.

Read the whole article, as there's more. The thing is, Obamacare wasn't intended to decrease health care costs. I don't remember anyone ever really saying that it was. Obamacare was to increase access to health care. Increasing access, as the President points out in the quote above, results in more people using health care, which results in higher costs.

Insurance, by definition, has to do with who is assuming the risk. If you don't have insurance, you assume the financial risks if you have a health care incident. If you have a private insurance plan, then the insurance company has the risk. Under Obamacare and other socialized medicine models, the taxpayer has all of the risk.

The health care debate was never about decreasing costs, at least not from the Obama/Pelosi side of the aisle. It was always about shifting the health care risk from the private insurance industry to the tax rolls.

Stop with all of the "moderation" crap

2010-09-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

E.J. Dionne has a piece up today decrying the O'Donnell victory in Delaware. Dionne apparently spent some time with Castle on election night, and the two had a few good cries over their beer about how "extreme" the GOP is now and how awful it is that the Republican Party is purging itself of all the moderates.

The money quote comes at the end:

But the larger question is whether the country is ready to deliver a majority to a Republican Party that now holds problem-solvers like Castle in contempt, is scared to death of a well-financed right wing that parades under a false populist banner, and, in primary after primary, has aligned itself with Sarah Palin, who anointed O'Donnell one of her Grizzlies.

Will moderate voters take a chance on the preposterous proposition that this Republican Party will turn around and work in a calm, bipartisan way with President Obama? Or will they use their ballots to wake up the Republicans and tell them that they need more Mike Castles, and fewer extremists?

Aren't the parties supposed to actually stand for something? If both parties are full of moderates who compromise time and again with the other party, what exactly is the point having a party to begin with?

Personally, I want a lot less moderation, and I think that the majority of Americans would tend to agree with me.

I spoke this morning to a school full of adults attending a technical school for Constitution Day. These are average, everyday people. When I asked how many of them had voted in the last election, maybe four hands out of the fifty people in the room went up. But when I told them that one of the big problems in politics today is that there is too much moderation, every head in the room was shaking their head up and down in agreement.

What's confusing to so many people about politics is that everyone seems to believe the same stuff...because everyone pretends to be a moderate. Let the Republican Party be for rabid conservatives and the Democrat Party be for rabid liberals and let the people choose between those two philosophies.

That's the way it's supposed to work. That's the way the people want it to work. It's only the Washington insiders and media that want nothing but moderates so that they can all protect each other and no incumbent ever loses an election again.

Less moderation. Less incumbents. Faster, please.

On O'Donnell and masturbation

2010-09-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ann Althouse has probably the best defense against the ridiculous criticism of O'Donnell for believing that masturbation is a sin. Best of all, she brings up this interesting little nugget.

President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, fired Jocelyn Elders in 1994, after people freaked out when she said that young people should "perhaps ... be taught" about masturbation, because it is "is part of human sexuality" and useful in keeping them from doing riskier sexual things.

Not only that, but O'Donnell was simply espousing a belief that is extremely common among Christians of all denominations, and Catholics, in particular.

In fact, perhaps all of the media that want to make this such a huge issue should ask Nancy Pelosi and some of the other Catholic Democrats if they think that homosexuality is a sin. Their church certainly teaches that it is. But no, it's much more fun to try to paint a Republican as a lunatic, in spite of the fact that she's simply standing up for the views of mainstream Christianity.

And this is why the party should stay out of primaries

2010-09-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Steve Benen's post is representative of a great deal of what we're seeing from the left today now that the GOP establishment has decided that they will, in fact, support Christine O'Donnell now that she's the nominee. Basically, they're pointing out the obvious: the party obviously hates O'Donnell and thinks that she can't win, but now they're all saying they love her and think that she can win.

This has always been one of the strongest arguments for the party staying out of primary elections. You can't spend months telling everyone what a horrible, awful candidate O'Donnell is and how she couldn't win if her life depending on it and then turn around once that candidate is the nominee and do a complete 180.

Mark my words, one of the most effective attacks that will be used against O'Donnell heading toward November is that she "could not be elected dog catcher." Can't you just see the ad now? "Even the Chairman the Delaware State GOP agrees, etc, etc."

Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot more Christine O'Donnell-style elections to send the message to the GOP that they can't do this to us anymore. Faster, please.

Should the party back O'Donnell

2010-09-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner makes a point that I think is very valid.

You really think it’s “outrageous” for the national party to spend its resources where it thinks it can win seats? Is the party morally obligated to risk winnable seats in Wisconsin and Washington by pouring money into Delaware? What I think is a little rich is for folks who declare war on the party establishment to expect that same establishment to bankroll them.

I guess it's really more one point than two, so allow me to respond to both.

1. It is entirely valid for the national party to make smart decisions about where to invest its resources. As Jonah Goldberg put it in a response to Ramesh.

The RNC won’t wait to see how things look when the smoke clears before deciding to cut her loose? That sounds like spite.

I think that this is the larger point. It's not that the party shouldn't decide where to put its resources, but to say that O'Donnell can't win in November when just yesterday it was thought that O'Donnell couldn't win the primary seems more than a little silly. The party apparently needs to take another look at how they're evaluating this race and then make a decision about where to put resources.

2. I think that Ramesh's point about taking on the party establishment and then expecting them to bankroll your campaign is a much more germane one. However, what everyone needs to remember is that the parties are funded with contributions from party members that expect their contribution to go toward electing Republicans. Within the parameters of point number one above regarding making smart decisions regarding resources, it would be irresponsible for the party apparatus to withhold resources from a campaign simply because the campaign was anti-establishment.

We're not gonna take it

2010-09-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

This song by Twisted Sister should have been blaring out of the speakers last night at Christine O'Donnell's victory party, as she celebrated her defeat of liberal Congressman Mike Castle for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator in Delaware. More than any of the other primary victories that conservatives have secured recently, this is a line in the sand. The divide in the Republican Party between those that crave a return to conservative principles and governance and those that seek to simply perpetuate their own careers and consolidate power has been rent wide open, revealing an enormous chasm as we head to the November elections.

Good.

Frankly, I was only vaguely aware of the Delaware primary election up until a week or so ago, as was just about anyone outside of the state. I'm not intimately familiar with every detail about O'Donnell (or Castle, for that matter). I'm not prepared to pronounce that she is the epitome of conservatism or that I wish we had a lot more candidates like her. What I am prepared to do is to express my glee that the rank and file party members beat the Establishment with a candidate that they at least perceive as more conservative, and they did so irrespective of whether or not their candidate could win in November.

While many will discuss the naivety of this decision, decrying the emotionalism that went into the O'Donnell effort, what we should be focusing on is the fact that this was a long time coming. As I wrote Monday, the Tea Party movement (I use this phrase generically to represent the wide swathe of voters angry at government) must make a decision about its direction. Will it draw lines in the sand as we’ve seen here in Delaware, or will it vote for the lesser of two evils in order to secure political victories?

The reason that I have long been an advocate for standing firm on principle no matter the price electorally is very simple: it is the absolute only way to change the Republican Party. As long as conservatives are willing to vote for the lesser of two evils, the Republican Party has proven time and again that we can expect to get liberal candidates. Both parties could care less about principle. They exist simply to get majorities elected and, the Republican Party establishment has concluded, you don’t get a majority by running strong conservatives.

This belief has resulted in more and more liberal candidates, as the party reaches far outside of its own ideological boundaries to try to appease a segment of the electorate that doesn’t naturally fit. Why do they do this? Because they can. The base of the Republican party is conservative, but these conservatives have shown the party that they will jettison their principles to vote for whichever candidate can beat the Democrat in November. Therefore, in order to gain more votes and amass larger majorities, the party has recruited liberal candidates in order to have the best of both worlds: the conservative base voting for their guy as well as a portion of the electorate that might not normally vote Republican.

The end result of this form of calculated watering down of principle in both parties has been that the distinction between them has become practically indiscernible. Both parties have walked away from their principles in such a way that it seems that all candidates are moderates. One of the best things that President Obama and the liberals in Washington have done is to begin to redraw this distinction between the two parties. This is nothing if not good for the electorate. Let liberals be liberals and conservatives be conservatives. And let the voters decide which of these two should govern.

So the fact that Republicans in Delaware basically told the party to go pound sand is an excellent thing, and something that I’m hoping we see much more of in both parties. The widening rift between the governing elite and the people they are supposed to represent will only continue to get worse unless members of both parties start demanding an adherence to principle. The Republican base has finally had enough of their party’s mealy-mouthed, liberal candidates and have decided to thumb their noses at the establishment and do their own thing, consequences be damned. Twisted Sister would be proud, as am I.

Should government even be paying people's retirement?

2010-09-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

I grabbed this one from Andrew Sullivan (I enjoy reading him, although I don't agree with a lot of what he says).

Andrew Biggs has an intelligent discussion regarding Social Security. He takes on both sides, which I think is just.

First, the left.

Most on the Left argue for increasing the cap on wages subject to payroll taxes, which is currently $106,800. Some argue for simply raising the cap, often to around $170,000, while others argue for eliminating it outright. Either option would increase marginal tax rates for affected individuals by over 10 percentage points. President Obama has his own plan for taxing high earners: he would apply a payroll surtax of 2 percent to 4 percent on earnings above $250,000, with no additional benefits paid in return. While less economically harmful than plans to lift the “tax max,” Obama’s proposal would fix only around 15 percent of the long-term deficit, meaning more pain in the future.

This sounds right to me. The left wants to raise taxes on "the rich" (again). Next, the right.

The Right would also make high earners pay most reform costs, only through lower benefits rather than higher taxes. President Bush’s plans for “progressive indexing” of future retirement benefits protected the bottom third of earners from any benefit changes but made significant reductions versus scheduled benefits for high earners.

Republicans want to reduce benefits, which is again accurate. Biggs points out that neither solution actually fixes the program. He then goes on to talk about how progressive Social Security should or should not be and suggests that we rethink the program altogether.

The broader point here is that policy makers need to think beyond merely filling Social Security’s multi-trillion-dollar shortfalls, and particularly beyond doing so merely by sticking the bill to high earners. Rather, they should consider reform as if they were designing a system from scratch: if so, how would they decide to spread the burdens and benefits of a national pension program over citizens of various earnings levels? If too progressive, the program begins to resemble “welfare,” with the associated stigma and resentment that implies. If not progressive enough, the program may fail to accomplish its social insurance goals. In either case, though, policy makers need to consider facts and data, not simply overstated claims that high earners are not paying their fair share.

My problem with this is that what he's not doing is asking the larger question: is a national retirement plan an appropriate function of the federal government? Where in the United States Constitution is Social Security authorized? Granted, neither Republicans or Democrats want to have this conversation, but given the fact that no one has any real ideas for how to "fix" Social Security so that it becomes solvent, I think that it's about time that we start putting this on the table.

What I've never heard anyone talk about before is the idea of pushing the public retirement plan down to the state level. There would certainly be no Constitutional issues with it, as every power that is not specifically granted to the federal government is left to the states. I'm not necessarily advocating having state government fund people's retirements, but a savvy Republican could propose the idea of having this conversation at the state level and be within the Constitution while potentially avoiding the political pitfalls that usually come with talk of eliminating Social Security.

This isn't a policy position that I've thought out in great detail, and I haven't researched yet whether or not anyone else has, either. I would be interested in other people's thoughts or more information.

Boehner to Tea Party: you're screwed

2010-09-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

Minority Leader John Boehner exposed himself as just another political hack yesterday on Face the Nation.

WASHINGTON -- House Republican leader John Boehner said Sunday he would vote to pass middle-class tax cuts without an extension for high-income earners, but only if that's the only way to get an extension of Bush-era tax reductions through Congress.

"If the only option I have is to vote for those at 250 and below, of course I'm going to do that. But I'm going to do everything I can to fight to make sure that we extend the current tax rates for all Americans," Boehner told CBS' "Face the Nation."

This statement should frighten everyone that cares about the future of this nation, and particularly those involved in the Tea Party and working to retake Washington from the big spending liberals.

One of the preeminent fears that many have had is that, should voters elect a Republican majority in November, Republicans will simply go back to being the big spending liberals that were under President Bush, although a bit less liberal than the Democrats have been.

Boehner's statement that he would support President Obama's tax increase is the telltale sign that Washington Republicans still do not get it. They are more than happy to exploit the Tea Party movement in order to get back into power but, once there, they have no intention of changing their ways. The question is, will the Tea Party work as hard to toss big spending Republicans as they to toss the Democrats?

Thankfully, other members of the caucus are not reacting in kind, but one has to wonder if that has more to do with the proximity to the November elections rather than a real commitment to principles.

No, Tea Parties, there really is no one that you can trust. If we're going to change Washington, we're going to have to change who is in Washington, regardless of their party. Electing more politicians isn't going to fix this mess. Electing real Constitutional conservatives is.

Enthusiasm gap?

2010-09-09T12:47:00.000-07:00

If this guy is any indicator, Republicans are very...um...enthusiastic.

HT: The Corner

Excuses, excuses

2010-09-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

I was on the road for a few days, and played catch up today. I hope to resume regular blogging (again) tomorrow.

Stick with me while I work on making blogging a habit again. Please?

Let's hope that Jim DeMint is right

2010-09-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

National Review Online has an excellent interview up with Senator Jim DeMint. DeMint says all of the right things, including

GOP incumbents, DeMint warns, should pay close attention to what is happening around the country. Even if there is a Republican sweep, he says, “many Americans fear that senior members of our party will go back to focusing on getting earmarks for their states, that we will betray them again. But with ten to 15 new allies in the Senate, which I think we’ll have, that will not be tolerated any more.”

I tend to be very skeptical about these sorts of things. First off, I'm not convinced that all of the "allies" that DeMint thinks that he's getting will be as strong as he's assuming. Second, and I hope I'm wrong about this, I'm not as confident that the people will hold Republicans accountable after the 2010 elections are over.

I talk about this a good bit when I fill in on the local talk radio station, but my big fear with the Tea Party movement is that once they've gotten some scalps in 2010 they'll just walk away. Once they've beaten back the Obama/Reid/Pelosi trifecta of Socialism, I'm afraid that many of the newcomers to politics will walk away feeling they've done their job.

Look around at the protests and rallies that are happening everywhere. Yes, you see some generic railing against government excesses, but how much of what you see is targeted specifically at the President and Congressional Democrats, or at least at issues that only exist because they are in power (think mosque in New York City).

That there has been something of an awakening of what can very loosely be defined as conservatism in America is undeniable. However, I think that 2011 and beyond will be a test of how partisan that conservatism is. If voter anger is sufficient to give Republicans a majority in the House and at least come close in the Senate, I fear that the resulting gridlock will be sufficient for many that wear the Tea Party label.

Again, I hope that I'm wrong, and I pray that Jim DeMint is right.

Mexicans smuggling Americans to replace lost population

2010-09-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know. The real story here is supposed to be that our federal government has begun placing signs near the border warning travelers that they are entering an area where smugglers, drug dealers and criminals abound. The story is supposed to be that our government is so derelict in its duty to protect the border that it cannot even guarantee the safety of Americans inside the country. Everyone's angry that the problem has gotten so bad that our tax money is now being used to warn citizens that our tax money has failed to protect them and that the area within 100 miles of the border is now a war zone.

To be honest, that's just too damn depressing. So I'm going with the narrative that Mexicans have resorted to stealing Americans to try to replace the population being lost to illegal immigration. Yeah, it's still depressing and makes me angry, but it's also somewhat amusing. Some days...it's the little things, ya know?

Feds suing Arizona Sheriff for RAAAACIIIISM!!

2010-09-02T18:52:00.000-07:00

I know...news flash, right? Well, in this particular instance I'm talking about illegal immigration. In case you haven't heard, the Obama Justice Department is suing Sherrif Arpaio.

PHOENIX – The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.
The lawsuit calls Arpaio and his office's defiance "unprecedented," and said the federal government has been trying since March 2009 to get officials to comply with its probe of alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and having English-only policies in his jails that discriminate against people with limited English skills.

Who would have standing to sue the federal government for failing to enforce our immigration laws? Surely, someone has to. To be fair, this isn't just the Obama administration, although I think suing a Sheriff for attempting to enforce the law probably goes a bit farther than anyone else has.

Michelle Malkin, I think, has the best idea.

If putting warning signs up in parts of Arizona to deter legal US citizens from travelling through certain areas where they might encounter dangerous illegal activity is an acceptable response to crime, can’t the government just put up signs warning illegals not to travel through Sheriff Arpaio’s jurisdiction and leave it at that?

On political tactics

2010-09-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Politics is one of those odd professions where everyone does in fact think that they know everything. Largely because everyone has an opinion about politics, if you work in the business you probably spend a great deal of your time being told by friends and family how to do your job, what does and doesn't work, etc, etc. Therefore, I found this little tidbit interesting enough to pass along.

More and more pundits are jumping on the Democrats/Obama-are-in-trouble-due-to-bad-messaging bandwagon (for recent examples, see here, here, here, and here). What we're observing is a classic example of what you might call the tactical fallacy. Here's how it works:

1. Pundits and reporters closely observe the behavior of candidates and parties, focusing on the tactics they use rather than larger structural factors.

2. The candidates whose tactics appear to be successful tend to win; conversely, those whose tactics appear to be unsuccessful tend to lose (and likewise with parties).

3. The media concludes that candidates won or lost because of their tactical choices.

The problem is that any reasonable political tactic chosen by professionals will tend to resonate in favorable political environments and fall flat in unfavorable political environments (compare Bush in '02 to Bush '06, or Obama in '08 to Obama in '09-'10). But that doesn't mean the candidates are succeeding or failing because of the tactics they are using. While strategy certainly can matter on the margin in individual races, aggregate congressional and presidential election outcomes are largely driven by structural factors (the state of the economy, the number of seats held by the president's party, whether it's a midterm or presidential election year, etc.). Tactical success often is a reflection of those structural factors rather than an independent cause.

HT: Andrew Sullivan

Democrats are in serious, serious trouble...

2010-09-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Public Policy Polling.

We'll start rolling out our Ohio poll results tomorrow but there's one finding on the poll that pretty much sums it up: by a 50-42 margin voters there say they'd rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.

Independents hold that view by a 44-37 margin and there are more Democrats who would take Bush back (11%) than there are Republicans who think Obama's preferable (3%.)

Wow. I've been hedging my bets as far as how substantial the anger at Democrats really is among the electorate, but as Paul at Powerline notes:

There is no better political bellwether state than Ohio. If the Democrats weren't panicking before, they should be now.

Yikes.

Busy Days

2010-09-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

I know that it's been a couple of days of no posts. I've been busy and just generally not feeling very creative lately. I'm hoping that posting will resume over the next few days, and eventually become more habitual (it really is a discipline to update one of these things on a regular basis).

Check back soon for more content.

War within the GOP? Yes, please.

2010-08-25T10:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, but am I the only one that reads this and thinks, "Good!"

WASHINGTON – A Republican civil war is raging, with righter-than-thou conservatives dominating ever more primaries in a fight for the party's soul. And the Democrats hope to benefit.

The latest examples of conservative insurgents' clout came Tuesday at opposite ends of the country. In Florida, political newcomer Rick Scott beat longtime congressman and state Attorney General Bill McCollum for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. And in Alaska, tea party activists and Sarah Palin pushed Sen. Lisa Murkowski to the brink of defeat, depending on absentee ballot counts in her race against outsider Joe Miller.

The GOP is likely to survive its bitter intraparty battles in such states as Alaska and Utah, even if voters oust veteran senators in both. But tea party-backed candidates might be a godsend to desperate Democrats elsewhere — in Nevada, Florida and perhaps Kentucky, where the Democrats portray GOP nominees as too extreme for their states.

If Murkowski joins Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, as a victim of party activists who demand ideological purity, other Republicans are still likely to win in November, though Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would have to deal with more maverick members who are loathe to compromise. And the conservative insurgency is hardly all-powerful, as Sen. John McCain proved by easily winning renomination in Arizona despite a challenge from the right by J.D. Hayworth.

A few comments about this. First, political parties are supposed to stand for something. Granted, they exist ultimately to ensure that a majority of their members are represented, but the whole point is that there is supposed to be some sort of ideological common ground. Frankly, I think that a large reason for the surge in the Tea Party movement has been a general frustration with the "moderates" in both parties. Listen, if you are always standing in the middle of the road, it means you're not standing for anything at all.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I think that what the electorate is clamoring for is more partisanship, not less. The Republican Party is scared to death that ideological conservatives are going to take over their party while the Democrats are scared of the same thing from the left (as evidenced by Robert Gibbs' recent statements). It is stories like these that expose the real lie of Washington politics for both parties: it's all about power.

Neither party wants to display any kind of real principle because that might cause someone to disagree with them. If enough people disagree with your side, you get voted out of power. So rather than stick to your principles and actually try to solve problems the way that you think they need to be solved, you pander and hide your true colors to do what is necessary to get elected.

Democrats have been in complete control for almost 2 whole years, and they've governed like true Democrats. And look how angry the people are. Republicans are too damn stupid to figure out that the people want conservatives in charge right now. People are emphatically rejecting the liberal agenda of the Democrat Party. Why are Republicans so afraid to present them with a real, conservative agenda? You know, the kind of agenda that the Republican Party is supposed to believe in?

Until the Republican Party gets wise to the fact that our principles are popular and will allow us to win elections, particularly in the face of such awful failures of liberalism, there will always be a civil war within the party. As there should be.

Gridlock. Sweet, sweet gridlock.

2010-08-25T01:02:00.000-07:00

What could possibly be better?

Get ready for the most productive and decent political condition known to man: sweet gridlock. You get nothing. And after what you've been through these past few years, you deserve it.

Hey, things are tough. A new Rasmussen poll says 48 percent of voters regard President Barack Obama's political views as "extreme." Not surprising, seeing as -- how can I put this without being hyperbolic? -- Washington has been doing to the economy what "Piranha 3D" has done to cinematic excellence.

...

There is no greater check on power in Washington than two strong political parties.

Safe to say there will be enough secure Democrats and secure Republicans that legislative activity will be winnowed down to the bare necessities -- namely, politics without policy results. And that's fine by me.

What we need now is to stop the implementation of any more bright ideas and give everyone a break.

I can't wait.

In which I link an article to quote one spectacular paragraph

2010-08-24T00:40:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sick of this whole, ridiculous mosque controversy. But I absolutely have to link to this piece by Richard Cohen, No Compromise on Mosque, if only to be able to quote this paragraph.

If, on the other hand, you do not believe that the attack was launched by an entire religion, then you have a moral duty to support the creation of the Islamic center. Lots of people fall into this category -- or say they do -- and still protest the mosque. They include Newt Gingrich, New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio and that Twittering Twit of the Tundra, Sarah Palin. They indulge in a kind of pornography of analogy -- a bit of demagogic buffoonery that is becoming more and more obvious. They pretend that they have a solemn obligation to defend the (powerful) majority from the demands of the (powerless) minority and champion people whose emotions are based on a misreading of the facts.

Yes, he said "Twittering Twit of the Tundra." And I love it.

Ok, now that I've got the giggles out of my system (too much coffee, maybe?), on to the more serious point. This is something that I talked about on the radio the other day, and I think it's the main dividing line on this issue. Thus far, there have basically been two groups of people involved in this debate:

1) The first group believes that Islam is a dangerous religion. All of it. These people view this entire religion as a threat to our Western civilization. As such, they view the construction of this mosque so close to Ground Zero as the equivalent of a shot across the bow. Understandably, these people don't want this to go unanswered.

2) The second group of people believes that it is a small minority of the practitioners of Islam that subscribe to the more radical theories of the 9/11 attackers. These people, then, believe that we cannot lump the entire religion in with the radical views of a small group of its members. Therefore, they don't see the mosque as any kind of threat or insult and, as Richard Cohen points out, these people have a duty to defend the First Amendment rights of this religion.

Let me submit, however, that I belong to a third group. I don't know enough about the Muslim religion to feel qualified to make a statement one way or the other about whether it is only a minority of their membership that wants me dead (I will say, however, that what I know about it doesn't give me the warm fuzzies). However, it is my view that it's an irrelevant point. Even if every single Muslim prays every day for every American to wake up dead tomorrow, we as Americans have a duty to defend their right to do so.

We don't punish thought in this country (well, we shouldn't anyway...I'll leave my commentary on how hate crimes laws violate the Constitution for another day). We punish actions. If any Muslim, whether it's Imam Rauf or anyone else, takes action on their desire to see us all dead, then they should be punished by our criminal justice system immediately. Simply hating, however, is not a crime in the United States, nor should it be.

Since when did it become popular to be the thought police in the name of patriotism? It saddens me to watch faux conservatives destroying the credibility of the conservative movement just to score some political points. Sadly, though, this is what it's come to.

Exposing the lies of universal health care

2010-08-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

This is an absolute must-read from Thomas Sowell. First, pointing out the most obvious.

The most basic fact is that it is cheaper to remain sick than to get medical treatment. What is cheapest of all is to die instead of getting life-saving medications and treatment, which can be very expensive.

Okay, so I doubt that anyone is going to be trying to ram that through Congress (although if the unions wanted it, I wouldn't put it past the current ship of fools running this country). But enough with the funnies, here's the part that every American must read.

We don't hear about more than 4,000 expectant mothers who gave birth inside a hospital, but not in the maternity ward, in Britain in just one year. They had their babies in hallways, bathrooms and even elevators.

British newspapers have for years carried stories about the neglect of patients under the National Health Service, of which this is just one. When nurses don't get around to taking a pregnant woman to the maternity ward in time, the baby doesn't wait.

But the American media don't tell you about such things when they are gushing over the wonders of "universal health care" that will "bring down the cost of medical care."

Instead, the media spin is that various countries with government-run medical systems have life expectancies that are as long as ours, or longer. That is very clever as media spin, if you don't bother to stop and think about it.

Author Sally Pipes did bother to stop and think about it in her book, "The Truth About ObamaCare." She points out that medical care is just one of the factors in life expectancy.

She cites a study by Professors Ohsfeldt and Schneider at the University of Iowa, which shows that, if you leave out people who are victims of homicide or who die in automobile accidents, Americans live longer than people in any other Western country.

Doctors do not prevent homicides or car crashes. In the things that doctors can affect, such as the survival rates of cancer patients, the United States leads the world.

Americans get the latest pharmaceutical drugs, sometimes years before those drugs are available to people in Britain or in other countries where the government runs the medical system. Why? Because the latest drugs cost more and it is cheaper to let people die.

The media have often said that we have higher infant mortality rates than other countries with government medical care systems. But we count every baby that dies and other countries do not. If the media don't tell you that, so much the better for ObamaCare.

The left continues to beat the drum that European systems are not only cheaper, but that they're actually better. As Thomas points out, this is just simply not true. Much of the impetus for passing health care reform, in fact, is quite frankly just fabricated. They weren't just lying about what's wrong with our system or what they think is right about European systems, they lied about the problem of the uninsured living in the United States.

Unfortunately, Obamacare is the law of the land now. As much as I would like to see it repealed, I'm not holding my breath. Not only do I think that this would procedurally be very difficult to do (especially with the threat of a Presidential veto looming large), but I don't see the current field of Republican candidates having the stones to do something like that.

No, what is far more likely is that the problem will be made infinitely worse by "tweaking" Obamacare in an effort to make it better. While this will be done with the best of intentions, it will have disastrous consequences. Politically, government involvement in the health care decisions of Americans will become a foregone conclusion, something that everyone just accepts as necessary to varying degrees. From a policy standpoint, while their may initially be attempts to peel back some of Obamacare, this will be yet another entitlement program that will do what they all do: grow, and grow, and grow.

And it's all based on lies and half-truths. Democracy. Ain't it great?

On embryonic stem cell research

2010-08-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

An obvious win for the right to life community today.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked government rules expanding stem cell research, a blow to the Obama administration that could stall potentially lifesaving research.

The nonprofit group Nightlight Christian Adoptions contends that the government's new guidelines will decrease the number of human embryos available for adoption and implantation. Nightlight helps individuals adopt human embryos that are being stored in fertilization clinics. The group provides domestic, international and embryo adoption services to families in all 50 states.

I don't count this as a huge victory, per se. This is more just holding things up for a bit based on a technicality. Also, note the "could stall potentially lifesaving research" from the AP. Yeah, because there's not a single, solitary shred of scientific evidence that we'll ever be able to do anything with embryonic stem cells. The larger point to think about, though, is what's going to happen if we actually do find something lifesaving that uses embryonic stem cells? Here's basically how it works now, from the story.

To qualify, the NIH insisted on evidence that the woman or couple who donated the original embryo did so voluntarily and were told of other options, such as donating to another infertile woman.

So these are women and/or couples who are choosing to donate these embryos to this cause. See? These are embryos that would be destroyed anyway, so what's the harm? Right?

Wrong. This is just the way that it works for now. If scientists cure cancer, for example, with embryonic stem cells, you are going to see an industry pop up virtually overnight that revolves around the creation and destruction of human life. That is why those of us that value human life must continue to oppose embryonic stem cell research. There are other avenues of research providing far more promising results, and in a nation where we are all endowed by a Creator with a right to life, we cannot promote an industry that revolves around death.

Ron Paul nails the mosque issue

2010-08-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

I don't think that this really needs any commentary from me, other than to say that once again Ron Paul gets it while the mainstream Republican Party is clueless.

Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?

It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?

In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.

They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. A select quote from soldiers from in Afghanistan and Iraq expressing concern over the mosque is pure propaganda and an affront to their bravery and sacrifice.

The claim is that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And, we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.

The nineteen suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al Qaeda existed prior to 9/11.

Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.

This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible.

There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?

If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.

The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.

Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.

Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam–the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservative’s aggressive wars.

The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding a Congressional investigation to find out just who is funding the mosque—a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law—in order to look tough against Islam.

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.

Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.

AWOL for a couple of days

2010-08-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if I'll get anything posted today or not, but I'm on the radio at 3pm and then heading to Camp Hill, PA for the night. Then I'll be in York, PA all day tomorrow doing a training, so I'm not sure if I'll be updating again before Sunday. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves until I return.

More "separation of church and state" idiocy

2010-08-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, tonight just must be the night for it. This isn't quite as dumb as the ruling against Davidson College, but it's pretty dumb.

Washington (CNN) -- Memorial crosses erected along Utah public roads to honor fallen state highway troopers have been found unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.

A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the 14 large crosses would be viewed by most passing motorists as "government's endorsement of Christianity."

"We hold that these memorials have the impermissible effect of conveying to the reasonable observer the message that the state prefers or otherwise endorses a certain religion," concluded the Denver, Colorado-based court. The state of Utah and a private trooper association have the option of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Texas-based group, American Atheists, successfully sued five years ago to have the nonprofit memorial project scrapped, and the crosses removed from public property.

So now crosses, which are basically the universal symbol of reverence for the dead, irrespective of an individual's religious preference, are somehow an endorsement of Christianity? Granted, the cross is a very Christian symbol, but to argue that honoring the dead with crosses is tantamount to an endorsement? Insane.

Not to mention the fact that, as I mentioned in the previous post on Davidson College, nowhere in the Constitution is government even prevented from endorsing a religion. The Federal Highway Administration could tomorrow start putting up signs saying, "The FHA endorses Christianity." and there is absolutely nothing un-Constitutional about that. The Constitution simply says Congress cannot pass a law that either; a) establishes a religion or; b) prevents someone from freely exercising their religion. These crosses do neither, and this is yet another ridiculous ruling by a ridiculous judiciary.

Religious schools can't have law enforcement?

2010-08-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

Some "separation of church and state" nonsense to end your day with.

RALEIGH, N.C. – A prestigious North Carolina private college cannot have police officers with the power to arrest suspects and enforce state law because the school is a religious institution, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel agreed that the state Attorney General's Office shouldn't have commissioned Davidson College officers as law enforcement with powers similar to city police or county sheriffs. An attorney familiar with the case said it may apply to other private colleges with religious affiliations.

Allowing the school's security officers to carry out laws on behalf of the state violates the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against laws establishing religion by creating "an excessive government entanglement with religion," Judge Jim Wynn wrote in the unanimous opinion.

The police power "is an unconstitutional delegation of 'an important discretionary governmental power' to a religious institution in the context of the First Amendment," Wynn wrote before he left the state bench to join the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week.

How did we get from

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against laws establishing religion by creating "an excessive government entanglement with religion

Does anyone with even half of a brain honestly believe that allowing sworn police officers on the campus of a college with religious leanings is in any way whatsoever akin to Congress making a law establishing a religion?

The secular, atheist, morally bankrupt left wants the citizens of this country to believe that "separation of church and state" exists to keep religion out of the government rather than the other way around.

What should happen here? A brave state legislator in the great state of North Carolina should step forward and start impeachment proceedings for the three judges that sat on this panel in accordance with North Carolina's Constitution. We have clear cut evidence that these judges have zero understanding of the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold and defend. They should be removed from the bench posthaste. Unfortunately, most politicians are too spineless to do something like that, so the ruling will stand and the narrative that we have to keep our religion out of politics will become further ingrained in the minds of the people.

Tough sledding for the economy...and the Democrats

2010-08-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

It doesn't look like the economy is going to get any better anytime soon, at least not according to the Congressional Budget Office.

(Reuters) - The U.S. economy faces difficult times ahead with chronic unemployment and slow manufacturing hurting the pace of recovery, the head of Congress' budget agency said on Thursday.

The warning from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office came on top of more bad U.S. economic data that heightened concerns about a return to recession, roiling markets. The gloomy outlook could also spell trouble for Democrats facing November congressional elections.

The CBO forecast the U.S. budget deficit will hit $1.342 trillion this year, down slightly from its March projection of $1.368 trillion.

It attributed most of the $27 billion change in its fiscal 2010 deficit projection to an estimated $50 billion reduction in the cost of TARP, the U.S. government's bailout of financial institutions in 2009.

I don't think that most reasonable people really expected the economy to turn around very quickly, particularly given that the current administration's solution to the economy appears to be to just spend, spend, spend...deficit be damned! Well, that may just come back to bite them.

Anxiety over the economy is likely to punish President Barack Obama's Democrats in November's midterm elections because of perceptions of big deficits caused by government spending and high unemployment.

Obama has been pushing to expand jobs by encouraging more lending to small businesses. Proposed legislation has stalled over Republican objections to more federal spending. "They need help. And if we want this economy to create more jobs more quickly, we need to help them," Obama said in a statement.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg warned of fiscal calamity.

"The current pace of U.S. spending is unaffordable and unsustainable and without a change in direction this country is headed for fiscal calamity," said Gregg, the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

I just had a conversation with someone about this tonight. The nice thing about having Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress is that this is 100% at their doorstep. There's nowhere else to turn to find someone to blame. One of the downsides to having Republicans take control of at least the House, if not the Senate, is that if things do start to turn around, you can bet that Obama is going to take credit for it in 2012.

Obama throws Democrats under the bus...again

2010-08-18T05:27:00.000-07:00

President Obama, campaigning in Washington for Democratic Senator Patty Murray, did his party yet another favor today by warning that recovery from the recession will take a few years.

A campaigning President Barack Obama said Tuesday it will take a few years to dig the nation out of the recession, warning impatient voters that any candidate promising faster results "is just looking for your vote."

The president's economic outlook, coming in the heat of a divisive midterm campaign stretch, reflected his tricky political reality. He must try to persuade people soured by the sagging economy that they should re-elect Democratic leaders now, but he also is laboring to get voters to measure his efforts with a long view, as he looks ahead to his own re-election campaign in 2012.

From where I sit, it's one thing for the President to caution people about being too optimistic. In order to preserve whatever legacy that he hopes to have, he has to make sure that people understand that the recovery is going to take years. The part that I think should gall every Democrat running for election is this:

any candidate promising faster results "is just looking for your vote."

Now, which party do you think is going to be promising faster results? Do you think that it's going to be Republicans campaigning on how fast Obama's policies are going to turn the country around? Right...probably not.

Once again, Obama inserted his mouth where he would have been better off just leaving it at, "recovery could take years." By explicitly saying that anyone who says otherwise is basically a liar, he has preempted members of his own party from "massaging" the truth and making things sound better than they are. Now, I'm not saying that Democrats should do that, but for the President to insert himself...yet again...well, just wow.

This guy really is an egomaniac to the extreme. It's all about his personal legacy, his personal popularity, his poll numbers. Party be damned. Constitution be damned. Nation be damned.

Legalize It?

2010-08-18T04:58:00.000-07:00

Those of you that know me, know that there are very, very few issues that I am wishy-washy on. However, the legalization of drugs, in particular marijuana, tends to be one of those issues that I really see both sides on. The libertarian and the social conservative collide on this issue like no other.

I started thinking about this as I stumbled across this post over at Firedoglake (yes, it's a far-left blog and yes, I read far-left blogs - you have to know what the opposition is saying if you plan on beating them). They point to an article in Rolling Stone magazine about renewed efforts to legalize marijuana both in California and around the country.

In honor of the woman's right to vote

2010-08-18T03:14:00.000-07:00

For those of you that don't know, today is the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. In honor of this day, I wanted to post this tribute to women voters everywhere.

Yes, more on the mosque...

2010-08-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

My apologies in advance, but this stuff is just getting absolutely infuriating. Another AP story (emphasis mine).

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican candidates around the country seized on President Barack Obama's support for the right of Muslims to build a mosque near ground zero, assailing him as an elitist who is insensitive to the families of the Sept. 11 victims.

From statehouses to state fairs on Tuesday, Republican incumbents and challengers unleashed an almost unified line of criticism against the president days after he forcefully defended the construction of a $100 million Islamic center two blocks from the site of the 2001 terror attacks.

Recalling the emotion of that deadly day, Republicans said that while they respect religious freedom, the president's position was cold and academic, lacking compassion and empathy for the victims' families.

First, can someone explain to me which thing it was that President Obama did?? He either supported "the right of Muslims" to the build the mosque, or he "forcefully supported the construction" of the mosque. It cannot be both! Frankly, having read the President's original speech (and his ensuing "clarifying" statement), it is obvious that the President was asserting the former. He has since refused to comment on the latter.

Republicans, justifiably, want to hang this around the President's neck. I'm all for hanging this President's mistakes around his neck, but I have one gigantic problem with this one: it's totally dishonest. Every single journalist, pundit, blogger, etc., that has written that the President came out in support of the mosque is lying to you, plain and simple. Now, perhaps the President does support the mosque. I've seen reports where anonymous aides have claimed that he supports the mosque. But that's not what the President said. He said that Muslims have the right to build it. Yes, they even have the right to build it two blocks from Ground Zero.

I'm not writing this out of some deep need to defend this President. Frankly, he's done so much awful stuff to this country that I half revel in the knowledge that he's now taking political hits for something that he didn't do. But that doesn't make it right. There is more than enough ammunition against this President and his party without being dishonest about his level of support for this mosque. Honestly, Republicans risk losing what little credibility that they have with the public if the people happen to figure out at that this entire narrative surrounding the President and the mosque is pure political spin.

I've taken quite a bit of heat from Republicans and faux conservatives (I don't consider you a conservative if you're only a defender of the Constitution when it suits you - I'm looking at you, Sean Hannity) for defending the President on this. But it's a matter of honesty and integrity. Those are two characteristics that I believe that the American people desperately want to see exhibited by one of the major political parties. Unfortunately, those are also two characteristics that have been missing from both parties for a long time.

A (taxpayer-funded) war against Obama's (taxpayer-funded) propaganda

2010-08-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

Confederate Yankee has the story.

For those of you that haven't been keeping up, all of those fancy signs that you see all over the place touting stimulus projects are not only costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, but they may also be illegal.

It's the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Minority Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) that has been spearheading this effort to expose this wasteful spending.

To be fair, though, is it any more ethical for Rep. Issa to be using taxpayer dollars to campaign against Obama's taxpayer funded campaign?

This is the stuff that, as far as I'm concerned, has to stop in both parties. Issa could just as easily being using campaign money to fund this obviously political effort to taint Obama.

Two wrongs don't make a right, and all of that stuff...

The falsehood of the 'marriage equality' meme

2010-08-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

Given the recent news the last few weeks of a radical judge overturning Proposition 8 in California and all of the fanfare that has accompanied that news, I keep stumbling upon the phrase 'marriage equality,' which is a particularly dishonest phrase. In catching up on the various blogs that I read, I stumbled upon this post by Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly and decided that I've finally had enough and need to set the record straight.

Now, I have no doubt that this post is going to anger more than a few people, particularly those individuals that I'm connected with online that support the false concept of marriage equality. I do not write this to offend but, rather, to correct. Feel free to support two homosexuals marrying one another, but to call this 'equality' is a complete fraud. Allow me to explain.

First, to accept that homosexual couples are being denied marriage equality, we must examine what the definition of equality is. For our purposes, we will look at Proposition 8 in California as that's what is all over the news. Proposition 8 added one simple sentence to the California Constitution:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

So, who exactly is being discriminated against in that sentence? Men and women are both being given the right to marry one person of the opposite sex. All Californians, under Proposition 8, are equal. They all have the same rights.

What we have with the advancement of the false 'marriage equality' meme is a group of individuals seeking special rights, not equal rights. No one in California has the ability to enter into a marriage outside of the definition given above. Not homosexuals. Not polygamists. Not Uncle Creepy that wants to marry his niece. No one. All Californians are equal.

At this point I can practically hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the anti-Prop 8 community. This is the logic that they never want anyone to hear, because it exposes the lie that this is somehow about civil rights. Homosexuals already have the same civil rights as every Californian. Yes, courts have ruled that marriage is a civil right, and homosexuals have precisely the same right to marry as I do. The right to marry isn't what they want, though. They want the right to marry whomever they want, regardless of any other factors.

Take their position to its only logical conclusion and marriage as a civil institution becomes completely useless. If everyone can marry whomever they want, there becomes absolutely no reason for marriage to be a civil institution. Marriage exists as an institution because when men and woman come together, there is a high probability that this union will result in children. Society has a vested interest in those children for its own survival, so we not only recognize the benefits of these relationships but also add some responsibilities in an effort to keep them together and foster more just like them. It's not popular to say. It doesn't give everyone the warm fuzzies. But it's the truth.

If we begin to fall for the lie of marriage equality as it is bandied about by opponents of marriage, we might as well throw marriage entirely out the window. I know I certainly don't want that, and I can assure you that American society wouldn't survive it.

Yet another union bailout coming?

2010-08-17T01:26:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin has the story. From the Wall Street Journal.

Congress is gone for August—heaven be praised—but that hasn’t stopped unions from quietly mobilizing to push through a big new priority this fall: a pension bailout. Big Labor is going Code Red on the issue, in the face of a looming accounting change that would force companies to confront the Ponzi-style nature of multi-employer pension plans.

We wrote in June about this class of some 1,500 union-run retirement vehicles, in which companies across an entire industry pay into a single pension pool. Hundreds of these multi-employer pools are badly underfunded, thanks to years of labor funneling money into new pay and benefits, rather than into the funds for retirees.

The big problem with these plans is that when one company in the pool goes out of business, the other companies remain on the hook for the cost of the plan. These spiraling liabilities inspired Pennsylvania Senator and Big Labor favorite Bob Casey to introduce legislation to cordon off “orphaned” pensions—those for which an employer has stopped contributing or withdrawn from the plan—and drop them on the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Sponsored by Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey. Unbelievable. Unions have been slowly strangling the Pennsylvania economy for years, and now they've convinced our junior Senator that it's in the best interest of the nation to bail out the union's pension systems. I can't speak as intelligently about what the pension problems look like at the federal level, but I can tell you that they're bad at the state level. I can only assume that they're much, much worse the bigger you get.

The answer to the pension problems isn't a bailout, and it certainly isn't to fold a bunch of private sector pensions into the PBGC. The answer is to move as many of these employees as possible into a defined contribution plan and out of the defined benefit plans that they're currently in. Of course, this would take some spine, and that is something that no one these days seems to have.

Increase in border patrol suicides - AP blames boredom

2010-08-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press brings us this sad tale of a huge increase in the number of border patrol agents that are committing suicide.

FORT HANCOCK, Texas (AP) - After a bad day on the job as a Border Patrol agent, Eddie DeLaCruz went home and began discussing with his wife how to celebrate her upcoming birthday. Then he casually pressed his government-issued handgun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

"It was the ugliest sound I ever heard in my life," his widow, Toni DeLaCruz, recalled of that day last November. "He just collapsed."

A month later, one of DeLaCruz's colleagues at the Fort Hancock border post put a bullet through his head, too.

Suicides including these have set off alarm bells throughout the agency responsible for policing the nation's borders. After nearly four years without a single suicide in their ranks, border agents are killing themselves in greater numbers. Records obtained by The Associated Press show that at least 15 agents have taken their own lives since February 2008 - the largest spike in suicides the agency has seen in at least 20 years.

What could be causing this increase in suicides? Could it be the stress of an increased need for vigilance in a post-9/11 world? Perhaps it's the increase in public scrutiny as the border has become an increasingly hot political potato? Maybe it's stress and fear that results from the violence on the border that has increased at alarming rates. Nah. The AP lets us know that these guys are just bored.

The job, which starts at about $37,000 a year, has changed dramatically since the hiring surge began. Two years ago, an agent at a busy border station might have processed 150 illegal crossers a day.

But stepped-up border security - including 600 miles of fence and an even larger "virtual" fence that is monitored online - has reduced the number of illegal crossings, as has the economic hardship of the recession.

The result is a job that went from thrilling to downright boring. Agents often spent 12-hour shifts sitting alone in Jeeps and pickups keeping watch for illegal immigrants.

"Now an agent may start his shift and sit in one position for eight hours and monitor traffic and do their work," said psychologist Kenneth Middleton, clinical director of the Border Patrol's peer-support program. "Now they've got a whole lot of time to think about other things going on in their life."

There you have it, folks. Our borders are so stinking safe that the guards are getting bored enough to blow their own brains out. All of this panic and hysteria about the borders is just completely overblown. Obama's got it all taken care of.

To be fair, the AP does present the other side of the story. You know, from the perspective of the other guards instead of some shrink.

Other Border Patrol agents defend the job as anything but boring. Thane Gallagher, a 13-year veteran of the agency stationed in San Diego, said Monday that the pressures of meticulously documenting and thoroughly questioning every captured immigrant have mounted since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Even for agents assigned to monitoring posts along the fence, Gallagher said, it's "not a position that just lends you to sitting there drooling on yourself."

"If an agent is bored everyday at work, that's a choice they make," said Gallagher, a union representative in his sector. "There is always work to be done."

The potential for danger is constant, especially in places where the border has been wracked by a bloody drug war in Mexico.

This is likely much, much closer to reality. These guys are living in a veritable war zone. I find it odd that stories in the major media outlets about soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan committing suicide always focus on the horrors of war, but when it's our border patrol, it must just be because they're bored. Right.

New Theme

2010-08-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

No, you're not crazy. I changed the theme tonight because I thought that the other one was a little difficult to read. I'm not necessarily thrilled with this one, as I don't like where it puts the comments because I think it's a little difficult to find them. I may change it again, I may not. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments section.

Republicans now have biggest generic ballot lead ever

2010-08-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

According to Rasmussen, Republicans now enjoy the largest lead that they've ever held over Democrats in a generic ballot test.

Republican candidates have jumped out to a record-setting 12-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, August 15, 2010. This is the biggest lead the GOP has held in over a decade of Rasmussen Reports surveying.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely Voters would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for Republicans is up two points from the previous week, while support for Democrats dropped three points.Republicans have led on the Generic Congressional Ballot since June of last year, and their lead hasn’t fallen below five points since the beginning of December. Three times this year, they've posted a 10-point lead. Prior to this survey, GOP support since June 2009 has ranged from 41% to 47%. Support for Democrats in the same period has run from 35% to 40%.

I don't think that anyone sees this as a big surprise. Given all of the angst over the economy, two wars, etc., I don't think that it's a huge surprise that the public is blaming the party that is in power. Especially when...well...it's their fault.

The real question here is, what are Republicans going to do about it? And no, I'm not talking about how do they intend to make political hay out of this. I'm talking about how are they actually going to govern once they're back in power. They'll have two choices:

1) Go back to doing what everyone has always done. Be the party driving us off the cliff at a little bit of a slower rate than the Democrats, but continue to drive us off the cliff because this is what the people that write the big checks demand, and you need those big checks to get re-elected.

2) Stick to your guns and exercise some principle. Say no to all of the various groups that have been feeding at the trough for decades (and let's be honest, it's basically all of them). Tell everyone that there's just no more money to be doled out to political buddies. Fundamentally change the system in a way that doesn't ensure that power is amassed in the hands of a few but, rather, that government begins to respond to the frustrations of the people.

Frankly, I'm skeptical that Republicans will take the latter approach. My fear is that much of the Tea Party, 9/12, etc. anger will go away after a wave of Republicans are elected to Congress. Everyone will feel like they've done their job by tossing out these evil Democrats. They'll go back to their lives as usual. And Republican politicians will go back to doing what politicians do best: robbing the taxpayer blind for their own personal benefit.

Beware.

Judge Walker's Awful Judgement

2010-08-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Once again, Judge Walker gets overruled.

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court put same-sex weddings in California on hold indefinitely Monday while it considers the constitutionality of the state's gay marriage ban.

In its two-page order granting the stay, the 9th Circuit agreed to expedite its consideration of the Proposition 8 case. The court plans to hear the case during the week of Dec. 6 after moving up deadlines for both sides to file their written arguments by Nov. 1.

The decision, issued by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, trumps a lower court judge's order that would have allowed county clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples on Wednesday.

Lawyers for the two gay couples that challenged the ban said Monday they would not appeal the panel's decision on the stay to the Supreme Court.

The bias that Judge Walker has shown throughout this trial is practically criminal. Hopefully, the apellate courts do their job and overturn this awful ruling.

Harry Reid Bails on Obama?

2010-08-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Harry Reid has come out against the proposed mosque just blocks from Ground Zero in New York City. Now, I've spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks trying to get people to tone it down a little bit on this issue. Specifically, I find the mischaracterizations of the President's statement from last week to be nothing short of dishonesty. Now today, we get reporting like this from Foxnews:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid broke with President Obama Monday over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, saying the controversial Islamic center should be built elsewhere. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid broke with President Obama Monday over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, saying the controversial Islamic center should be built elsewhere.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think that the placement of this mosque is as offensive and insensitive as the next guy. But that's not the point. The point is that the President never said that he supported the mosque. Rather, he simply said that Muslims had the right to build it wherever they want as long as they're in compliance with local laws and ordinances. Harry Reid is saying the exact same thing, except he's taking it a step farther to say that he thinks it's wrong to place the mosque near the site of the 9/11 terror attacks. Obama simply punted on whether or not they should build the mosque at this proposed site.

As far as I'm concerned, Republicans (and the media) are losing a lot of credibility on this issue. Muslims have a First Amendment right to place the mosque where they're proposing. It's wrong. It's insensitive. But they have that right, and the President was right to say so. Flame away...

Sharron Angle, government and God

2010-08-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Read my latest, When Government Plays God, at the Center for American Heritage web site.

I know I posted once and then went on hiatus, but I plan to really try to get back to it in the near future. Stay tuned.

Advice and Consent: Return to the Constitution

2010-07-05T06:07:00.000-07:00

As confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan are now fully underway, everyone is trying to find the answer to the same question, just who is this woman? As an appointee of arguably the most liberal President this nation has ever seen, Republican Senators need to approach this nominee with a critical eye from the very beginning. Unfortunately, however, many current members of the United States Senate seem to have a very watered-down understanding of their role in the confirmation process.

The Constitution states that the President “ shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint...judges of the Supreme Court.” Note that the Constitution very clearly distinguishes between the nomination and the appointment of a Supreme Court justice. While it is fully within the President’s Constitutional authority to nominate a justice, it is only with the advice and consent of the Senate that they are to be appointed.

Many Senators, and many candidates currently running for the United States Senate, seem to believe that their role in the process is minimal. They feel that as long as a justice is qualified and there are no obvious ethical or legal issues with the individual, they are to be confirmed easily. They seem to believe that the President must be given a great deal of deference in whom is appointed to the nation’s highest court. If a liberal President is in office, they will confirm liberal justices. If a conservative President is in office, they will confirm conservative justices.

The standard currently used by many members of the Senate seems to me to be a far cry from what most people would believe ‘advice and consent’ to mean. If my wife comes to me and asks for my advice and consent on which school our children will attend, I certainly don’t think that she expects me to simply agree with whichever selection she makes. Advice and consent is meant to be the beginning of a conversation, a negotiation of the merits of a proposition. In this case, the proposition of whom will be the next justice of the Supreme Court, a lifetime appointment with the ability to greatly affect the lives of every American.

In a time of great turmoil and strife in this nation, with wide divisions over the role and scope of government, with an ever-growing movement of average citizens screaming for government to return to the Constitution, Senators would do well to start with the confirmation process. The Constitution clearly gives Senators a role at least equal to the President’s in the appointment of a justice, if not their nomination. This process should be a conversation regarding the role of the Supreme Court and it’s justices.

Elena Kagan has proven to have some troublesome views of the Constitution and the role of the federal government. It was recently brought to light that she was directly involved in the manipulation of the public regarding the necessity of partial birth abortion, a barbaric procedure that inarguably results in the murder of a baby. Her direct intervention, in a very unethical way, in a political debate at a very minimum must give Senators pause. Our justices should not be political, they must adhere strictly to the Constitution. Kagan’s record and her character must be closely examined to avoid placing a political activist on the nation’s highest court.

Average citizens do not have access to the mountain of information that Senators receive regarding these nominees. Frankly, very few of us would be interested if we were provided with it. Our elected Senators, therefore, are being granted a great trust from the people that they represent. Voting on a confirmation is one of the most solemn duties that a Senator has, and it is one that they must take extremely seriously. Unfortunately, in recent years the Senate has become a rubber-stamp for the President’s nominees. It is time to return to the original intent of ‘advice and consent,’ to the original Constitutional authority and responsibility that is vested in the Senate. Senators have sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and it is high time that they begin to do so, in this way, and in so many others.

Temporary-Post-Used-For-Style-Detection-Title-2145211934

1999-12-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

Temporary-Post-Used-For-Style-Detection-Content-2145211934

High Minded Commentary

One of the things that I love about the Internet

More videos of Planned Parenthood breaking the law

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Patterico (wrongly) makes the case for practicality

Let there be a primary

On the Giffords shooting and the First Amendment

The first failure of the Republican Congress

This year, I make resolutions

DADT - and the flood gates open

O'Donnell schools Coons on the First Amendment

Voters want a third party

Angle brings in $14 million - spells doom for Democrats

Campaign Finance in the 21st Century

BOMBSHELL: Fiorina thinks Palin qualified to be POTUS

Bill Clinton to campaign for Harry Reid

Obama admin tries to cover up real impact of health care reform

More evidence that government will never shrink

Charlie Crist governs to the left - pitches to the right

NV GOP State Senate leader endorses Reid over Angle

Obama could be the big winner in 2010

If tax cuts expire - low income Americans hit the hardest

Rasmussen has Angle up on Reid

Drug testing the unemployed

Comments

Almost half of Tea Party members identify as part of the religious right

Pelosi speaks truth

Romney and 2012

What does victory for the Tea Party look like?

The closing argument

MSNBC Announces ‘Lean Forward’ (This Won’t Hurt a Bit) Campaign - By Daniel Foster - The Corner - National Review Online

My thoughts on the O'Donnell ad

A Tea Party for the Democrats?

Spending is just never going to go down

Pledge to America: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

New GOP plan includes social issues

The GOP and health care repeal

Please Sarah, don't run for POTUS

Shocker: Obamacare increased health care costs

Stop with all of the "moderation" crap

On O'Donnell and masturbation

And this is why the party should stay out of primaries

Should the party back O'Donnell

We're not gonna take it

Should government even be paying people's retirement?

Boehner to Tea Party: you're screwed

Enthusiasm gap?

Excuses, excuses

Let's hope that Jim DeMint is right

Mexicans smuggling Americans to replace lost population

Feds suing Arizona Sheriff for RAAAACIIIISM!!

On political tactics

Democrats are in serious, serious trouble...

Busy Days

War within the GOP? Yes, please.

Gridlock. Sweet, sweet gridlock.

In which I link an article to quote one spectacular paragraph

Exposing the lies of universal health care

On embryonic stem cell research

Ron Paul nails the mosque issue

AWOL for a couple of days

More "separation of church and state" idiocy

Religious schools can't have law enforcement?

Tough sledding for the economy...and the Democrats

Obama throws Democrats under the bus...again

Legalize It?

In honor of the woman's right to vote

Yes, more on the mosque...

A (taxpayer-funded) war against Obama's (taxpayer-funded) propaganda

The falsehood of the 'marriage equality' meme

Yet another union bailout coming?

Increase in border patrol suicides - AP blames boredom

New Theme

Republicans now have biggest generic ballot lead ever

Judge Walker's Awful Judgement

Harry Reid Bails on Obama?

Sharron Angle, government and God

Advice and Consent: Return to the Constitution