The Next Time Liberals Tell You Conservatives Control the Media...

Just point them to the past week of coverage, when a lunatic kills six people and shoots a Congresswoman in the head, and Sarah Palin and talk radio are blamed immediately.

Words fail me to describe the unmittigated gaul of the leftwing fringe--hell, everyone to the left of Sean Hannity--to lecture the public on the ills of conservative opinion. WTF is wrong with these people?

Out With The Old, In With The Old

I expect we'll be seeing a whole lot more stories like this one and this one complaining about Republicans wasting money now that the R's are in charge of the House. These are the same people digging us into trillion-dollar holes less than a month ago, but we do have a word for that: democrisy.

People on the left wonder why we can't take them seriously, and it's probably because their such freakin' hypocrites (among other things). Their faux concern for the poor--the ones they can manipulate best--coupled with their utter contempt for those who actually create jobs and push the economy leaves any smart person rolling their eyes. How could any serious person take them seriously? I mean, stunts like this one, from the group of job-killers that just got ousted, is laughable at best. Cue derisive laughter.

It would have been too much to ask that Democrats stop behaving like Democrats even for a day. I realize that. But watching them try to explain why the 2/3 lock on government they have doesn't make them responsible for everything in Washington is pretty disgusting.

Why Don't We Just Start Branding People?

A new Texas law proposal would require people convicted of animal cruelty register with the state like sex offenders must.

"A predator is a predator, if it's against a human or it's against an animal," said Alexander, who in 2007 put muscle behind toughening Texas' animal-cruelty law.

I'm not advocating animal cruelty or sexual deviancy, but where does this sort of thing end? We've already had people placed on sex offender lists for hugging students and talking to children in public places, not to mention people placed on sex offender registries because of data processing errors. And being convicted of a sexual offense could be as simple as urinating in public. Will the same thing follow with animal cruelty offenders?

Americans are shocked at the barbarity of certain Middle Eastern regimes when it comes to crime. But once you start registering people for peeing in public, barring them from certain professions and living in certain places, how far-fetched does physical punishment sound?

Good-bye and Good Riddance to the 111th Congress

What a mess Democrats have made of things over the last two years. It's not wrong to remind Americans what Democrats have done to them over the course of the last four years: high and long-term unemployment, reckless and pointless spending, increased job-killing regulation and more intrusion into our lives. Worse was the arrogance with which Democrats did all these monstrous things to us. This Wall Street Journal piece sums it up nicely:

For today's left, the main goal of politics is not to respond to public opinion. The goal is to impose the dream of an egalitarian entitlement state whether the public likes it or not. Sooner or later, they figure, the anger will subside and Americans will come to like the cozy confines of the cradle-to-grave welfare state.

Democrats are betting that once Americans start receiving "free" medical care, the demands for higher taxes on "the rich" will be overwhelming. And who knows? They might be right. When 1/2 of Americans aren't paying any income taxes at all and demanding more services, it's hard to argue that they won't want someone else to pay even more for them. My hope is that Americans truly aren't so stupid and greedy as Democrats rely on them to be.

Prediction: Filibuster Reform Will Be About Principle...

Until Republicans control the Senate.

Liberals love the arcane rules of Congress until those rules start gnawing their own posteriors. Then, of course, it's an abuse of power. Kinda like recess appointments and executive orders were during the Bush administration. It was a crime when GWB did it, but liberals embrace these tactics now Their Guy is in charge. I expect the same to be true in the 112th Congress.

Gay Bourgeoisie?

I thought this was an interesting argument regarding the trend of liberal avant garde becoming ho-hum normal.

Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian "free love." And avant-garde values. In this, they were simply picking up the torch from the straight left of the 1960s and 1970s, who had sought to throw off the sexual hang-ups of their parents' generation along with their gray flannel suits.

As a sexual lifestyle experiment, that failed pretty miserably, the greatest proof being that the affluent and educated children (and grandchildren) of the baby boomers have reembraced bourgeois notions of marriage as an essential part of life. Sadly, it's the have-nots who are now struggling as marriage is increasingly seen as an unaffordable luxury. The irony is that such bourgeois values — monogamy, hard work, etc. — are the best guarantors of success and happiness.

That homosexuals would want the same things heterosexuals do--love, family, stability--shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in the 21st Century. I'm sure there was a time when those identifying themselves as gay were doing so in an in-your-face f-u gesture, but I've met few gay people who felt that way. I would say that's a tiny fraction of the population. I have to agree with Goldberg on this part:

Personally, I have always felt that gay marriage was an inevitability, for good or ill (most likely both). I do not think that the arguments against gay marriage are all grounded in bigotry, and I find some of the arguments persuasive. But I also find it cruel and absurd to tell gays that living the free-love lifestyle is abominable while at the same time telling them that their committed relationships are illegitimate too.

We Were in Favor of Oversight Before We Were Against It

Remember when oversight was the favorite word of Democrats? Back in 2006, Democrats were interested in oversight of the environment, welfare, and the FCC. Democrats were really hot for oversight when it meant trying to hobble a Republican president.

Of course, oversight is just another word for putting the brakes on stuff we don't like, which is why it's ok when we're exercising Congressional oversight powers over a Republican president (cuz he's gonna destroy us) but is a shocking power grab by the rat bastards when exercised by Republicans against a Democratic president. In this case, oversight comes in the form of a provision of the 1996 Congressional Review Act.

House Republicans will have carte blanche next year, and will be able to pass as many of these "resolutions of disapproval" as they want. The key is that a small minority in the Senate can force votes on them as well, and they require only simple-majority support to pass. If they can find four conservative Democrats to vote with them on these resolutions, they can force Obama to serially veto politically potent measures to block unpopular regulations, and create a chilling effect on the federal agencies charged with writing them.

Considering the midterm elections were all about reining in government, you'd think Democrats would be all squiggly about doing the will of the people and fulfilling their constitutional duties to provide oversight to the president. But that only applies if the president is a Republican. I'm sure Democrats will love any ramp-up of executive power as long as the guy wielding it has a "D" after his name.