Republican Fratricide?

David Frum's column on the impending disaster in the New York Congressional race and New Jersey gubernatorial race.

By all rights, the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District should be a Republican cakewalk. Stretching across the hunting and fishing towns along the Great Lakes and Canadian border, the district contains Fort Drum, base of the 10th Mountain division, and re-elected its Republican congressman in the disaster years of 2006 and 2008 by margins of 60-plus percent.

Yet polls show the Republican candidate in serious trouble. State Republican Party leaders prevented an open primary race and instead engineered the nomination of one of their own, moderate, pro-choice Assemblywoman Deirdre Scozzafava.

Angry conservatives in the 23rd rebelled, rallying to the third-party candidacy of local accountant Doug Hoffman. Hoffman and Scozzafava are splitting the Republican vote between them, allowing Democrat Bill Owen to emerge as the front-runner.

I've heard all the arguments that conservatives are making against Scozzafava, including that she's been endorsed by ACORN. These arguments for ideological purity are great if, as Frum says, Republicans are committed to " a more coherent, better mobilized, but perpetually minority party."

Me? I'm interested in winning elections, because only by having majorities can we (a) stop the madness that is Democrats with the pursestrings and (b) pass any legislation with which conservatives can agree.

The main point of this post, was to show that the vast majority of Americans voters don't know a lot about the issues that get the rest of us riled up about. We have to find ways to appeal to the broad middle of the country which isn't as torn up about Scozzafava's endorsements as conservatives might be. I'm not saying that I'm happy with an ACORN-endorsed Republican candidate, but even that candidate would help the GOP regain control of the legislative process (even if she would vote largely with the Dems).

I'm all for discussing and debating the pros and cons of every issue, and I'm certainly open to having my mind changed on many of them. But the ideological purity demanded by much of the Right is not going to entice moderates back to the party. The Party of Reagan was quite tolerant of lots of people who didn't agree on abortion or religion, and the only way to pass any conservative legislation is to convince enough moderates that we're not scarier than what they already face with the Democrats in control.

Stimulating Renewable Energy

Jonathan Adler has a post up on this New York Times story on the differing approaches to renewable energy by Texas and California.

the oil-and-gas state has nonetheless emerged as the nation’s top producer of a commodity prized by environmentalists: wind power. Eager developers are covering its desolate western mesas with giant turbines. The world’s largest wind farm began operations in Texas this month, and the state now has close to three times as much wind capacity as Iowa, the second-ranked state.

This achievement puts Mr. Perry’s state in odd company. The race for clean-energy leadership is on — and big red Texas is going head-to-head with the gung-ho greens of California. That state has thrown itself into solar power and now leads the nation by a huge margin; it has also aggressively pursued energy efficiency...

Texas’s secret, besides strong winds and lots of land, is its lack of regulation. Wind developers rave about the fact that, in essence, they need few state permits to build a turbine farm. They deal mainly with local officials, who are generally permissive (energy, after all, is a well-loved commodity in Texas).

From Adler:

The comparison illustrates how regulatory policy can have a large effect renewable energy development. Mandates can certainly force investment into renewable energy sources, but regulations can also stifle otherwise productive investments as well. Indeed, as I’ve discussed before, some companies seeking to advance renewable energy sources have found environmental regulations to be among their greatest obstacles.

Kudos to Echidne

As I've said previously, it's not often I agree with Echidne of the Snakes, politically or regarding feminism, but she has put together some very fine posts over the last week regarding evolutionary psychology (particularly Satoshi Kanazawa) and her regular roundup of stories regarding the abuse of women. At first, these areas don't seem linked, but the problem with Kanazawa's work is one can certainly see where adhering to his theories (such as that men should dominate women) can lead to abuse of women (such as this article about Somali Islamists whipping women for wearing bras). Much food for thought here.

Propaganda? No!

Here's a Media Matters video attacking Fox News:

A couple of things come to mind with this video. First, Media Matters would like you to believe that Sean Hannity's opinions drive the news at Fox News. The problem with this argument is that there's nothing nefarious about both news programs and opinion programs covering the same topic. Networks do it all the time. Does Media Matters consider NBC or CBS not to be news organizations because they covered the War on Terror, followed by late night comedians doing skits on the war? What about MSNBC? If Keith Olbermann goes nuts about Carrie Prejean and MSNBC covers the story the same way, will Media Matters start complaining that they aren't a real news organization?

More to the point, Media Matters' biggest complaint seems to be that Fox News is actually asking why Barack Obama has so many unvetted people in his administration, people with radical pasts (and presents), who have, at best, been unethical. If Media Matters was actually interested in journalism (which they aren't), they would be far more concerned with why the MSM and MSNBC and CNN refuse to scrutinize the Obama White House.

UPDATE: Another fine example of MSNBC's "news organization."

Unemployment Rate 9.8%

That's 531,000 new jobless claims this week.

More people are dropping from the rolls or moving on to "extended benefits."

Many recipients are moving onto extended benefit programs approved by Congress in response to the recession, which began in December 2007 and is the worst since the 1930s. Those extensions add up to 53 weeks of benefits on top of the 26 typically provided by the states.

When those programs are included, the total number of recipients dropped to 8.8 million in the week ending Oct. 3, the latest data available, down about 50,000 from the previous week. That decline is likely due to recipients running out of benefits, rather than finding jobs, economists say.

I remember liberals complaining about GWB's "jobless recovery." Well, at least unemployment was still about 4-5%. Now we're told to get used to 8% unemployment.

It's not a recovery without jobs. Period.

Birthers Lose in Court Again

'Birthers' Lose Again as Federal Judge Nixes Challenge to Obama Presidency

U.S. District Judge Jerome Simandle in Camden, N.J., ruled Tuesday that four voters lacked standing to attack Barack Obama's eligibility or to claim their rights were violated by Congress' failure to investigate his place of birth...

Simandle agreed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Pascal that because the plaintiffs couldn't prove they had suffered any harm that was particularized, imminent or concrete, they lacked standing to sue. A claim that alleges the entire public is threatened or raises a general grievance about government isn't a sustainable under the Article III of the constitution, Simandle ruled in Kerchner v. Obama, 09-253.

The plaintiffs tried to get around the standing issue by pointing out that lead plaintiff Charles Kerchner, Jr. is a U.S. Navy reservist subject to recall to active duty. He would then need to know if his orders were emanating from a legitimate commander in chief, argued plaintiffs' lawyer Mario Apuzzo of Jamesburg.

But such an assertion is impermissibly conjectural and not an "injury in fact," as required by the rules on standing, Simandle said.

Even if they could show an injury in fact, the plaintiffs' claim raised the kind of abstract issue the U.S. Supreme Court has viewed as a legislative question, Simandle said, adding, "The Court acknowledges plaintiffs' frustration with what they perceive as Congress' inaction in this area, but their remedy may be found through their vote."

As I've said before, the Birthers should give up this fight. No court is going to hear or rule on their complaint.

Remember Transparency and Oversight? Not by Dems

I remember being told that with Democrats in control of Congress, there would be much more oversight than before. I guess the person who told me that wasn't really talking about oversight of Democrat wrongdoing. What we have, instead, are Democrats locking Republicans out of committee meetings for having the audacity to demand Congress conduct oversight of wrongdoing.

The Democratic chairman of the House committee responsible for government oversight has indefinitely locked Republican members out of the hearing room, following a dispute over a mortgage loan controversy.

Kurt Bardella, spokesman for ranking Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., had the locks on the Republican entrance changed Tuesday.

The move was apparently was in retaliation for Issa's efforts to subpoena records on Countrywide's so-called VIP loan program and for a video Issa's staff recorded of Democrats darting from their chambers a week ago in the face of a vote.

Here is the offending video:

The problem, of course, is that Democrats don't want to look into the Countrywide sweetheart mortgages given to Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad as bribes.

On Thursday of last week, as the committee was about to meet, the Republicans said that they wanted a vote on whether to subpoena Countrywide's records on the VIP program. The Democrats were between a rock and a hard place: the last thing they want to do is investigate their own party's corruption, but at the same time, they don't want to be seen voting to cover up the Countrywide scandal.

So what did the Democrats do? To a man (or woman), they hid. They failed to show up for the scheduled committee mark-up, leaving the Republicans sitting there by themselves in the committee room. The Democrats claimed that they didn't show up because of a conflict with a Finance Committee hearing, but in fact they were there, and were caught on video sneaking out a back door of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's offices.

It's hard to duck corruption in your party after you campaigned as Change We Can Believe In. But we have a word for it around here: democrisy.

Top Execs To Get $200K?

I know liberals think that's adequate compensation for running a multi-billion-dollar corporation, but my guess is that there will be lots of turnover at these companies if this order goes through. Then mediocre underlings will advance, not running the companies as well.

UPDATE: From PowerLine:

We are living through dark times. The administration's demagoguery will have far-reaching consequences. Presumably most of the executives affected by the cuts will leave their companies, while adequate replacements can hardly be hired at the rates the federal government is offering. And it isn't clear what ripple effects the government's high-handed decree will have. At Citibank or Bank of America, for example, will there be hundreds of employees paid more than the former top 25? Or will the pay cuts work their way down the chain? Any way you look at it, this decree will make it harder for the affected companies to regain profitability, the ostensible point of the TARP program...

One of the basic problems with the ever-increasing intrusion of the federal government into our economy is that questions that should be economic become political. What becomes most important is not providing the best product or service at the best price, but having the most pull in D.C. The Obama administration is feverishly engaged in rewarding its friends and punishing its opponents. That's a natural instinct for politicians, but having almost unlimited sway over the economy opens hitherto-unknown scope for political control and influence. Here, as in many other respects, we are sailing in uncharted waters.

We were told George W. Bush was the tyrant that was going to punish his political enemies. As usual, the boot in your face comes from the Left.

At least the guy deciding who should make what got to decide his own pay.

Patriot Act? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Patriot Act!

There are no terrorists here!

Test Your Political I.Q.

I scored better than 93% of people.

David Benzion at Lone Star Times uses this quiz to make the point that most people following politics on the internet are not normal, and that Republicans need to reach out to normal folks who don't eat, drink, and breathe politics.

Which means to win elections–still required in this nation to actually govern–you need to both mobilize your base AND win over enough voters who are less informed, who lack a coherent and principled political belief system, and who self-define as “independent” and “moderate.”

This is an important point to remember going into the 2010 election cycle. Democrats' approval is slipping badly, but Republicans still are looked at disfavorably, too. The trick it to get more of those who are angry/irritated/disappointed with Democrat rule to vote for Republicans in the mid-terms, rather than just stay home. Republicans need fresh blood, new ideas, and a greater sense of tolerance for moderates than is currently in vogue.

Dallas/Fort Worth Has Lost 75,000 Jobs

According to MITACS. Mouse over your favorite metropolitan area to compare!

Thanks to Lone Star Times for the link.

I'm in the Wrong Business

Carnegie Hall Stagehand Moving Props Makes $530,044

Why? One word: unions.

The stagehands benefit from a strong union: Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees demonstrated its clout in November 2007 when its members walked off their Broadway jobs and closed 26 shows for almost three weeks. The strike ended after stagehands and producers agreed to a five-year contract that both sides called a compromise.

Joshua B. Freeman, a U.S. labor historian at Queens College and author of “Working Class New York,” said the union’s power to shut down a vital part of New York’s entertainment industry gives it leverage in negotiations.

“They have a credible threat of withdrawing their labor,” Freeman said.

Local One President James J. Claffey Jr., who earned $260,877 in salary and benefits in 2007, declined to comment. Union spokesman Bruce Cohen said O’Connell had no comment. Gillinson also had no comment, while Matlaga and Weber didn’t return calls.

Cohen said in an e-mail that members “work under collective bargaining negotiated fairly with management, signed by management and ratified by the membership of the union.”

Hooray for the little guys! Not.

Another Duh! Moment: Democrats Want a Single Payer System

Anyone who has paid attention to the health care debate shouldn't be surprised to learn it's just a way to get to socialized medicine.

The truth is that the public plan is a carefully devised scheme, a sneaky strategy, to deceive American voters. It’s a political marketing ploy designed to move the nation to a single-payer system – like the one in Canada – over the next decade. The public option is the Trojan horse. On the outside it’s all about “choice and competition”, but once it has been dragged within the walls of American medicine it’s true nature will become evident. By that time, it’ll be too late.

It's been stated many times and in many ways that the whole purpose of the public option is to create an unsustainable mandate for private insurance to cover everyone--not just those who can't afford insurance, but every person who decides they want insurance--and that the premiums must be reasonable. This requires young people, who don't use health care as much, to be forced to buy it. But the current bills have fines that are too low to be effective, which will mean people will wait until they are sick before getting insurance. This will drive insurance companies out of business, or require them to jack up premiums to levels most people can't (or won't) afford.

The bills also contain numerous taxes which will make private insurance less and less appealing. Your so-called "Cadillac" health plan that is part of your compensation will probably go the way of the dinosaur. Why not? Employers will have to pay taxes for health insurance anyway, and it will be much cheaper to just pay the 8% tax Obamacare is asking for.

Morgen Richmond's piece gives us the frightening facts behind the public option push, but it's not like we didn't really know this stuff before.

More damning still, we uncovered video of the original architect of the public option, Yale professor Jacob Hacker, describing how it was designed to not “frighten people into thinking they are going to lose their private insurance” even though that is the inevitable result. In another clip he denies the plan is a Trojan horse saying, on the contrary, “it’s right there”. In other words, it’s not even a secret. Most relevant of all, Hacker admits in another clip that the real advantage of his plan is that “at least you can make the claim that there is competition between the public and private sectors”. In other words, this is all a marketing strategy designed to get around public resistance to government-run health care.

We've heard the mantra over the last nine months about "choice and competition," from every Tom, Dick and liberal on the internet. Troll Perry has tried to make this claim multiple times in the comments, yet one has to be willfully blind to believe this crap.

Someone needs to say it bluntly, and I've never shied from that. The President is lying about Obamacare. He's lying when he says it isn't designed to lead to a single payer system. He's lying when he says you'll be able to keep your insurance. He's lying when he says you'll get to keep your doctor. He's lying when he says the public option brings "choice and competition." The only problem is, Democrats like lying and don't care that people don't want this plan.

The Real Reason the White House Is Attacking Fox News

According to Allahpundit is containment.

The White House is working to prevent stories born on Fox from crossing over into more widely-viewed media. Most Americans still haven't heard of Van Jones, for instance; and the strategy is now all about containment

Both Fox News and commentators like Glenn Beck have been all over the number of communists and radicals in the Obama White House, and this is information Anita Dunn and Rahm Emmanuel are highly motivated to prevent average Americans from knowing. Given that Fox News's ratings, gigantic for cable, are tiny by network news standards. Once these stories are picked up by ABC, NBC and CBS, the exposure is far greater, which is exactly what the White House is concerned about.

As Allahpundit notes, Jake Tapper is the only non-Fox News reporter willing to ask WH spokesman Robert Gibbs the tough questions. It's plain that the other media outlets are already isolating Fox News under the false assumption that asking Teh One uncomfortable questions will get you banned or something.

Ideological solidarity only goes so far; as Axelrod himself acknowledged about FNC, ultimately the news nets are in business to make money. So here he and Emanuel are, leaning on them not only to ignore Fox but to ignore stories that Fox covers, as if the underlying facts are somehow tainted by association (“Let’s make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories”). Creepy.

Much has been made about the media savvy of this administration, but there is a darker side to that savviness. It's called control.

Obama's Smart Diplomacy Looks More Like Chamberlain All The Time

Read this synopsis of President Obama's "smart diplomacy" with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program and you'll immediately noticed how we were played. But the post also links to this comment that I found even more interesting.

Now we know why Obama turned his back on Iranian protesters. Note that the secret negotiations began in June. What else went on in June in Iran? Oh yeah... those pesky election results protests.

Basically, he turned his back on the Iranian people because that whole free election fight of theirs wasn't nearly as important as the nuclear deal he was working out with Iran's regime. Too bad the regime couldn't be trusted to actually live up to its end of the bargain. Big surprise there, that you can't trust political leaders who believe in silencing their own people...

Maybe that should serve as an object lesson to us about Obama...

There was considerable confusion in June about why President Obama wasn't more forceful with Ahmedinejad regarding the peaceful protests in that country. We were told that it "wasn't our business" and that there were irregularities in our own elections, so, using that favorite false equivalency of the left, "we can't tell others how to run their elections."

But I find these developments more sinister than mere isolationism. The fact that President Obama was unwilling to condemn the harsh treatment of political protesters in Iran was most likely tied to these negotiations. How can any peacenik support a president who is willing to sell common citizens out this way?

Journalists Are Journalists No Matter What the Political Stripe

Thomas to White House: End Fox fight

Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas on Monday advised the Obama administration to stand down and avoid fighting with Fox News and its correspondents...

"They can only take you down. You can't kill the messenger," said Thomas, who has covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama.

Other than distracting from his disasterous fight over health care reform, picking a fight with a news organization is never a good idea. Journalists know they've struck paydirt when the target squeals.

Say It Ain't So...

The Obama-Dubya Connection:
Obama is a lot more like Bush 41 than anyone involved—-including Obama and Bush 43—-would readily admit.

Suddenly, however, once confronted by the complexities of the presidency, Kennedy found that perhaps Eisenhower was not so out of it after all. The photograph of the two men, taken from the back (Ike is carrying his hat), shoulder to shoulder, embodies a truth that remains relevant now: for all the sound and fury of the arena, on big issues American presidents tend to have more in common with one another than one might at first think. There is a presidential character intrinsic to the office. Part of this is because what seemed black and white while you were running looks a lot grayer once ultimate power is yours, and part of it is that the country changes presidents more frequently than the country changes itself. We are a center-right nation politically and culturally, which means we value moderate governance—and we punish those who stray too far one way or the other.

Obama started backpedaling once he started receiving the Presidential Daily Briefings.

Pandagon Watch: I Guess PETA Is a Rightwing Organization

Amanda Marcotte has to dig deep in this post to find those malevolent conservatives to be at fault for violence at a animal protest.

Members of an animal rights group were the victims of sniper fire during a protest here Saturday and are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the shooter.

The Companion Animal Protection Society (CAPS) staged a protest in front of the Aquarium & Pet Center to protest the retailer's alleged sale of "puppy mill" dogs, or purebred pups that have been bred in inhumane conditions. That's when the shots rang out.

Three protesters were hit with what was later determined to be brass pellets fired from a high-powered air rifle. The protesters suffered minor injuries, said Sgt. Jay Trisler with the Santa Monica Police Department, which is asking for the public's help in identifying the shooter...

(West Coast director of CAPS Carole) Davis said the attack occurred at a time when there is a "highly charged atmosphere" when it comes to animal rights. The Santa Monica City Council recently voted in favor of banning cat declawing and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have put caps on the number of animals used in puppy mills, becoming the only governor in the six states where puppy mill legislation passed this year to override it with a veto. Jeffrey Prang, a City Councilman from West Hollywood, which has also banned cat declawing, is working on an ordinance to ban the re-selling of any pets except bred or rescued animals in that city.

Here's what Amanda had to say about the incident:

But all that is essentially unimportant, especially if this is what it seems, which a case where an independent operator with no ties to the pet store decided to take potshots at people whose larger point---that puppy mills are evil and people should not financially support them---is a sound one. If indeed this is a random act of right wing violence, then that tells you a lot about how bad things have gotten, that someone is willing to act violently in the name of a man’s god-given right to torture puppies.

Huh? How does anyone--even a nutjob like Amanda--come to the conclusion that this was "a random act of rightwing violence," versus either (a) a nut or (b) someone with a different beef with this group or (c) an animal rights organization like PETA or Animal Liberation Front? Why, because Amanda tells us so! In the comments, someone asks how she knows it is "rightwing violence" and Amanda answers it.

I don’t know for sure, nor did I say. I went out of my way, in fact, to say that it was likely but not certain.

But, of course, she did say. She speculated that it was "a random act of rightwing violence," then went on to juxtapose that story with one on high schools barring cross-dressers from appearing in the yearbook as cross-dressers. It's an odd (and difficult to make) analogy to be sure, but leave it to those intrepid bloggers at Pandagon to make it.

But even before bringing up the cross-dressers, Amanda tries to find a way that Republicans are responsible for shooting pellets at protesters in front of a pet store.

Indeed, this attack came after the Governator vetoed a bill that would have set a limit on the number of puppies you could cram into a puppy mill, which seems to be yet another example of a Republican standing up for cruelty on the grounds that American penises will fall off if we don’t engage in needless cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

It really is too bad Amanda couldn't get the gig as official White House blogger. I mean, aside from attacking Fox News and trying to get people to snitch on their friends, there's just not enough leftwing hysteria on display from the POTUS.

More Humor of the Day

Humor of the Day

Obama Approval Dropping Again...

Faster than the prices on Halloween gear.

The survey contacted over 2200 adults on line, and his numbers dropped significantly from September’s poll, giving Obama an unfavorability rating of -10.

Worse for Teh One, he's losing those optimistic, happy-pappy 20 somethings that bought HopeNChange.

During the election, Echo Boomers (those aged 18-32) were the strongest age group supporting the president. Now they are of mixed minds on his performance as just over half (51%) give the president positive ratings and 49% give him negative ratings. The oldest generation, Matures (those aged 64 and older) are even more negative with just 39% giving President Obama positive marks and 61% giving him negative marks.

Americans have had a good look at one-party rule under the Democrats and, unsurprisingly, they do not like the direction they want to take us.

White House Losing War with Fox News

That's according to The New York Times.

Even though almost all the critiques contained a kernel of truth, in each instance the folks who had the barrels of ink, and now pixels, seemed to come out ahead. So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year, and the network basked for a week in the antagonism of a sitting president

It could all be written off as a sideshow, but it may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling. In his victory speech he promised, “I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”

We can put this in the list of the many Obama promises not kept (a.k.a. lies). We have the most thin-skinned (and that's not raaaaacism) president in history, who never ran anything and thinks the world should love him because he's the First Black President. Shame on anyone for not bowing down! Why, it's un-American! God, I miss the days when dissent and criticism were patriotic.

More criticism of leftwing whining here.

So, Even If the Record Deficit is Bush's Fault...

Shouldn't Democrats quit spending money we don't have? Good God, at what point will this weasly administration quit blaming George W. Bush for everything? You'd think Democrats hadn't held Congress since January 2007. At some point that "It's George W. Bush's Fault" card is gonna expire. My suspicion is, in 2010.

Pandagon Watch: Raaaaacism Is Everywhere! Edition

Whenever someone I know expresses surprise at the bizarre naivete of the Left regarding Teh One, and the unbridled hatred the Left holds for anything conservative, I simply tell them to spend a few minutes at Pandagon and they'll learn all they need to know about the stupidity masquerading as political thought by leftwingers.

Granted, it's probably a little unfair to tarnish all liberal sites with the mouthbreathing Pandagonistas (take, for example, this site, with which I disagree quite a bit but tends to be less noxious than most feminist sites), but given the echo chambers easily found, I might be excused for assuming that all liberals (or at least a large number of them) are every bit as batshit crazy as the Pandagonistas.

Take the assumption that all Republicans are raaaaacists, and that good, upstanding people believe America isn't a fair and decent country. Not that this belief should be, in any way, construed as "hating America," because, as we all know, thinking your country is a terrible place is the height of patriotism, right up there with calling the president a liar and fantasizing about assassinating the POTUS.

Here's some slop from Amanda:

The only possible answer is that many Americans have opposed President Obama’s policies. But why would that cause African-Americans to think that our society is “discriminatory” rather than “decent”? No mystery there: in a well-coordinated campaign, the Democratic Party has relentlessly portrayed all disagreement with the Obama administration’s policies as “racist.” That contemptible and divisive tactic had seemed to produce no results, but we now see that it had one consequence: alienating African-Americans from their country.

The only theory he’ll accept is that there’s been a campaign to trick black people into assuming that there’s racism where there isn’t. And that they’d be so easily fooled. Not that what he’s saying doesn’t fall right in line with the usual conservative mythology that presents black voters as sheep that follow white liberal shepherds, because conservative literally cannot accept that black voters who vote for Democrats might do so because they want to. This assumption is 2 parts racism and 1 part unwilling to admit that the racism of Republican politics drives off black voters. But it’s 100% offensive, because the assumption is that black people are feeble, or they’d be able to see through the evil lies spun by the Liberal Mafia of Hollywood Elites.

The weird part about this argument--that Republicans are racist and think black people are gullible, voting for Democrats because they're "sheep"--is exactly the same argument liberals made back in 2004 with such scholarly works as What's the Matter with Kansas? Indeed, those voting for Republicans because they did not see themselves as victims were considered, well, gullible and stupid. Amanda's hypocrisy knows no bounds, of course, but it's still amazing to watch.

She buys quickly into the Sadly, No! idiocy, where a Tammy Bruce post titled Nobel Committee Announces Another Peace Prize Winner with a raccoon rifling through a Cracker Jack box, is raaaaacism.

Because, you know, it's a raccoon and that's short for coon which is a slur against black people. So, obviously, the headline ("Nobel Committee") doesn't really mean that the Nobel committee is the one sifting through a Cracker Jack box looking for a new peace prize winner. In that clever, clever skullduggery of the Right, the raccoon is President Obama, because, I guess, he's now a Norwegian on the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Or something.

And just to show how very subtle this raaaaacism is, many commenters to Amanda's post missed it until Amanda pointed it out. I mean, that's subtle, designed to infiltrate even the battle-hardened, racism-finding everywhere folks at Pandagon!

Of course, the opposite conclusion, that finding raaaaacism in a joke clearly not raaaaacist just emphasizes the raaaaacism of the left, is really just too subtle for these guys. Or that the reason black people might be thinking America isn't fair and decent has more to do with false raaaaacism charges from Democrat demogogues than actual racist statements and behavior. Nah. If we believe that Democrats are just using stupid raaaaacism charges to tar their political opponents, that would be impugning their motivations. Because, you know, only white Kansans can be "gullible."

Why Don't Democrats Just Admit...

The Baucus "bill" explodes the deficit, creates even more disincentives for doctors to treat Medicaire patients and RAISES BLOODY COSTS FOR EVERYONE???

To be honest, I am so tired of the lying going on with the so-called health care debate. Read this and remember the 14 despicable jerks who passed this monstrosity out of committee.

I'd Love to Think They're Concerned About the Children, but That'd Be a Lie

Evidently, I missed the Cupcakes for Life campaign, but it drove abortion supporters batshit crazy.

For Cupcake Day, you bake cupcakes and ice them with pro-life messages, explaining to people that kids love cupcakes for birthdays, but when women kill their babies, those babies don't get birthdays anymore.

This message drives abortion supporters nuts, of course (kinda like the New York Times showing what abortion actually is), because they want everybody to believe that babies are kinda like your appendix, except after nine months they detach without the surgery (or, I guess, with the surgery if you have a C-section).

What's worse for the pro-aborts is the fact that Pro-Life Cupcake Day is aimed at the children. Gasp!

They're straight-up organizing elementary and high school kids to spread the message that abortion's wrong, only instead of using bloody photographs or baby dolls, they're using birthday parties and cupcakes to get their point across.

Yes, those intrepid, evil pro-lifers should be talking about bloody fetuses to third graders because, you know, that would be very ineffective, which is what pro-abortion types want. I mean, it's not like they indoctrinate children with leftwing ideas or anything.

No, it's just infuriating for children to be faced with cupcakes that say "I Heart Babies" on them because, you know, it just rolls off the tongue better than "National Insidious Anti-Choice Agenda-Pushing Week."

It's also amusing how concerned abortion supporters are with not breaking the rules here on distributing homebaked goods in school. Nevermind the inconsistency here when they are all supportive of breaking the law to get minors abortions without parental notification. The ends justify the means, you know?

Robert Reich Wants You to Die

Well, "want" may not be the appropriate word, but he is certainly open to the idea of "letting seniors die" in the most honest moment of the health care debate by a Democrat.

Well, at least we have a Democrat admitting Barack Obama's not honest.

Proving a Negative

Liberals are anxious to prove Rush Limbaugh is a racist to the point where they will use fake quotes to do it.

Limbaugh's bid to buy the St. Louis Rams is all but dead, but this shows you what a few enterprising jerks can do to someone when they try hard enough. We're left having to prove you didn't say something. Disgusting.

"The absolute absence of any legitimate legal argument...demonstrates that Ms. Taitz's purpose is to advance a political agenda"

Federal judge fines birther nut $20,000 for filing a frivolous lawsuit

U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land has issued a $20,000 sanction for misconduct in a Columbus, Ga., case involving California lawyer and dentist Orly Taitz, a leader of the "birther" movement whose members have challenged President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship.

Land issued the 43-page order (pdf) on Tuesday, the third order in which he has taken Taitz to task for filing frivolous litigation and attempting to misuse the federal courts to promote a political agenda that seeks to illegitimize Obama's presidency.

Land, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia in 2001 by President George W. Bush, issued the $20,000 penalty "as punishment for [Taitz's] misconduct, as a deterrent to prevent future misconduct, and to protect the integrity of the Court," noting in his order that he could not recall ever having previously imposed monetary sanctions on an attorney of his own accord without a motion from a party in the litigation.

"The absolute absence of any legitimate legal argument, combined with the political diatribe in her motions, demonstrates that Ms. Taitz's purpose is to advance a political agenda and not to pursue a legitimate legal cause of action," Land found. "[C]ounsel's wild accusations may be protected by the First Amendment when she makes them on her blog or in her press conferences, but the federal courts are reserved for hearing genuine legal disputes, not as a platform for political rhetoric and insults."

Don't expect the nuts to give up easily.

The Crybaby Administration and Fox News

Great piece on why the Obama White House anti-Fox strategy is completely wrong.

When (White House spokesman Anita) Dunn was asked whether the president refused to accept interview requests from Fox because the White House sees the network as "a wing of the Republican party," the communications director responded: "Is this why he did not appear? The answer is yes."

That is such a radically wrong response that it calls into question the whole communications strategy of an administration that has somehow managed to take a man who was elected with a mandate and lodge him in a corner where there are now serious questions about whether a Democratic president and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress can enact basic elements of the Democratic agenda.

Obama should sit down with Fox reporters and anchors and do interviews. That does not mean that the president has to put up with the emotional wreckage that is Glenn Beck. But there is no reason why he shouldn't go another round with Bill O'Reilly (as Obama did during the 2008 campaign) or sit down with Chris Wallace (as Bill Clinton did).

If the Fox interviewers are absurdly unfair, the American people will respond with appropriate consternation. On the other hand, if they are aggressive and pointed in their challenges, Obama will rise or fall on the quality of his responses. His aides, if they have any faith in their man's abilities, should bend over backwards to accept some Fox interviews. They should also accept an invite from PBS's Bill Moyers, who would pose tougher – and, yes, more informed -- questions than the Foxbots.

Barack Obama had a virtual coronation last November, and his administration seems to think the fawning coverage should continue, even as the POTUS flip-flops and lies and tramples on every promise he made to those who elected him. This is a White House which prides itself on its "new media" communications strategy, but it has forgotten that the new media isn't all that different from the old media. They will still ask tough questions and dig where presidents don't want them to. The only difference is the speed at which such results are posted.

If Barack Obama were smart--and not so egotistical--he'd do a few interviews with people like Bill O'Reilly and Chris Wallace, taking his lumps and working the audience. Fox News viewers, despite the stereotypes liberals want to foist on them, are not knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers. They are intelligent people interested in politics and current events. If President Obama wants to be the President of All of Us, he needs to accept the loyal opposition as legitimate and quite whining about it.

Joe Friday Talks to Barack Obama

Thanks to Chuck.

LGBT: Left Wing Fringe?

Dear, oh dear.

Yesterday, CNBC’s Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood said that the Obama White House doesn’t view dissatisfaction amongst LGBT advocates — tens of thousands of whom marched in Washington, DC yesterday — as a “serious problem” because officials feel “that if they take care of the big issues — health care, energy, the economy — he’s [Obama] going to be just fine with this group.” As evidence, Harwood cited an anonymous “adviser” who bashed bloggers and dismissed critics as part of the “Internet left fringe”

Probably not the best way he could have put it, to be sure. But given that LGBT are not a large percentage of the population, it's understandable that a staffer might mention how other farther-ranging issues will positively (to them) affect a variety of constituents.

Legal Insurrection notes that yesterday, the same complainers were happy when the designated White House shill was ripping Fox News for having the audacity not to be blinded by hope. Oh, the irony! Too bad the WH shill didn't do her homework.

More Proof That Liberals Inhabit a Different Universe

A (liberal) friend of mine is indignant that some people aren't happy about Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. I can't quote him directly, but what it amounts to is that Obama gives us "hope," and it's just not fair to expect him to "fix" everything in eight months.

This friend went on to say that he's seen President Obama compared to Hitler far more than George Bush ever was. I found this astonishing, so I did a Google search. Indeed, Barack Obama has more than twice the mentions as George W.Bush. But that's where the similarity ends. In the case of President Obama, most of the hits seem to be like this one, discussing the presence of some posters with Obama with a Hitler mustache. OTOH, the Bush hits are more like this, with people actually defending the Bush-Hitler comparisons (honorable mention for this site which lists a large number of Bush-Hitler comparisons).

This friend is very, very angry because the criticism of Teh One isn't going away, and I'm afraid we'll just have to stop discussing politics because he's really gone nuts on this.

The reason I say liberals inhabit a different universe is because I've seen repeatedly the claim that (a) liberals were treated terribly during the GWB years and (b) no one ever, ever, ever criticized GWB, called him names, insulted his family, fantasized about his assassination and so on. When I point out to them that the Hitler comparison has been rampant for most of the last eight years, they seem astonished.

Maybe electing Obama gives these same people amnesia. They forget the behavior of the last decade and tell themselves they were always well behaved. It's a good thing we have pictures to disprove this.

No Wonder Anti-Lifers Don't Want You To See...

The truth in pictures.

It's difficult to deny the humanity of babies once you see them.

Not Quite Death Panels, But the Results Are the Same

Daughter saves mother, 80, left by doctors to starve

AN 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.

Hazel Fenton, from East Sussex, is alive nine months after medics ruled she had only days to live, withdrew her antibiotics and denied her artificial feeding. The former school matron had been placed on a controversial care plan intended to ease the last days of dying patients.

Doctors say Fenton is an example of patients who have been condemned to death on the Liverpool care pathway plan. They argue that while it is suitable for patients who do have only days to live, it is being used more widely in the NHS, denying treatment to elderly patients who are not dying.

Emphasis mine.

They've lived long enough, right?

What Should Obama Say in Oslo?

Peggy Noonan has an excellent idea.

How about an unapologetic address, a speech, with the world's elites leaning forward and listening, about the meaning of America? A speech that shows a grounded and sophisticated love for his country and its great traditions and history. Not a nationalistic speech, not a prideful one, but a loving one.

For instance: The Peace Prize judges won't see it this way, but America has gone to Europe twice in the past century to fight for peace. This is an old concept, and has to do with killing killers so they can't kill anymore. It cost America a lot to do this, and we kept no territory, as they say, beyond the graves where our soldiers lie. America then taxed itself and gave its wealth not only to its allies but to its former adversaries, to help them rebuild. We didn't actually have to do this. We did it to make the world better. We did it to foster peace. (They should give us a prize.)

America hasn't just helped the world, it literally lit the world with its inventions, which are the product of its freedoms. The lights under which the Peace Prize judges read, and rejected, the worthy nominations? Why, those lights were invented by an American. The emails the committee members sent to each other, sharing their banal insights on leadership? They came through the Internet. Who invented the Internet? It was a Norwegian bureaucrat with a long face and hair on his nose and little plastic geometric eyeglasses? Oh wait, it was Americans. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are healthy because they have been inoculated against diseases such as polio. Who invented the polio vaccine, an enfeebled old leftist academic in Oslo? Nah, it was a man named Jonas Salk. He was an American.

Europe's elites experience Mr. Obama as a historical accident that needs and deserves their encouragement. Actually he was elected with 69.5 million votes, and you know, they were cast by Americans. Go figure.

Mr. Obama should get the spotlight off himself and put it on the great thing that yielded him up and made him possible.

President Obama gave a little of this in his speech on Friday, so I am not skeptical that he could do this. I'm not sure he'll have the political will to, however.

The Reasons Health Care Costs Keep Rising

This American Life had a fascinating program today why the costs of health care are so high and keep rising. The show was divided into three stories: doctors, patients and insurance companies.

The answer? All three. Doctors, who are paid by the procedure, perform too many. Patients are convinced that more care is better care and don't want to pass up a test or treatment (such as prostate cancer screening). And then there are insurance companies, which try to control costs to remain profitable.

What I came away with was confirmation of my earlier opinion that Americans want the best care for nothing. They want to go to the doctors they want and the hospitals they want, regardless of whether those things are most cost effective and provide the best care for any particular patient.

As the program noted, doctors use this emotional attachment patients have to doctors and facilities against insurance companies, forcing them to pay for unnecessary treatments and tests just to satisfy the customers. Regardless of what health care system we have, this will be a continuing problem because health care is treated in emotional terms (tear-jerk anecdotes), and it is difficult to break through that with practical and logical rhetoric.

But We Keep Hearing that Americans Want Health Care Reform!

54% Favor Middle-Class Tax Cuts Over New Spending on Health Care
Clearly, this isn't the majority, right?

"The Gipper ended the Cold War and never got a Nobel nod"

Excellent post regarding why Teh One got the Nobel Prize. Short answer: they're all leftists.

Politico’s excited to find that three of the five Norwegians on the committee are hard leftists (one of them a bona fide socialist), but does it really matter? European “conservatives” are about as far right as Joe Lieberman; you could have stacked the panel with Norway’s equivalent of Reagan Republicans and still gotten the same unanimous vote for The One that you got this time. The Gipper ended the Cold War and never got a Nobel nod. This is an institutional issue, not a membership one.

Obama won the NPP because he represents the America that the Europeans like: bumbling, ineffective, emasculated but articulate when it apologizes for America's greatness.

Journalism Should Own Its Liberal Bias

And then manage it, challenge it, and account for it

An important first step is to abandon the notion, popularized by Thomas Frank in What’s the Matter with Kansas?, that white working class voters are suckers, willing to cast ballots against their economic interests because corporations and evangelical Christians have scared the bejesus out of them with phony issues like gay marriage, abortion, government takeover of the healthcare system, and distribution of condoms in the schools.

These voters are not stupid. Unlike upscale youngsters in Cambridge, the Upper West Side, and Berkeley, who are equipped financially and psychologically to go with the sexual flow, the children of folks casting ballots for Republicans often get into big trouble when they get pregnant (see, Sarah Palin’s daughter) or tell their teacher to go to hell. To many of their parents, the school system has no business handing out condoms, in effect encouraging early sex. The overwhelming majority of Republican voters already have health insurance and they have genuine concerns about the damage to that coverage that government might do. These are people who arguably lose some of what they have when resources are redistributed under policies mandating, for example, affirmative action and busing. The mindset that perceives these voters as dumb jerks is what permitted a reporter and a series of Washington Post editors to let a description of evangelical Christians as “largely poor, uneducated and easy to command” go unquestioned into a front-page story.

It's easier to dismiss disagreeing opinions if you first marginalize and stereotype dissenters.

This Is Nuts

I'm not a fan of Barack Obama, but I think calls for impeachment are stupid and repugnant.

Impeachment is reserved for a POTUS who commits high crimes and misdemeanors, not a POTUS with whom we disagree. We already have a mechanism for dealing with a president we don't like.

It's called elections.

How You Win the Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize Committee Jumps the Shark

In Surprise, Nobel Peace Prize to Obama for Diplomacy
For his first 10 days in office.

Even the MSM are stunned and skeptical. Me? I'm cynical.

What diplomatic efforts “so far”? He gave a speech in Cairo and … and … and … gave a few in Europe, too. That was the point of those questions from reporters; Obama has done little so far.

Barack Obama won the prize for not being George W. Bush. It's hard to have more contempt for this prize after this.

UPDATE: John Podhoretz gets it exactly right.

The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization’s highest ideals.

He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.

Real Cost of the Baucus Bill...

$2 trillion

The CBO scoring makes it clear that the Baucus bill's reduction in future budget deficits comes not from controlling government spending or reducing health care costs, but because of a rapid escalation in tax revenues. The bill imposes a 40 percent excise tax on health-insurance plans that offer benefits in excess of $8,000 for an individual plan and $21,000 for a family plan. Insurers would almost certainly pass this tax on to consumers via higher premiums. As inflation pushes insurance premiums higher in coming years, more and more middle-class families would find themselves caught up in the tax.

In fact, overall, the tax increases in the bill are more than double the amount of deficit reduction. This isn't a health care efficiency bill or a cost containment bill. It is a tax and spend bill, pure and simple.

The CBO's numbers were based on the most optimistic take on the numbers in Baucus's health care concepts, not any actual legislation. It makes far more sense that the actual legislation would cost far more.

Obama Wants Afghan Women Tortured

You can't make this stuff up.
Barack Obama: Taleban can be involved in Afghanistan future

President Obama is prepared to accept some Taleban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and is unlikely to favour a large influx of new American troops being demanded by his ground commander, a senior official said last night.

Mr Obama appears to have been swayed in recent days by arguments from some advisers, led by Vice-President Joe Biden, that the Taleban do not pose a direct threat to the US and that there should be greater focus on tackling al-Qaeda inside Pakistan.

This is outrageous. This is the same guy that, as a candidate, insisted on troop reinforcement for Afghanistan. But this isn't the first flip-flop lie that the POTUS has told. Now, Teh One is willing to sell Afghan women back to the Taliban to appease the Left. Disgusting.

More at Hot Air and Townhall.

Maxine Waters: We're All Crooks

Ok, she didn't put it quite that way.

"Many members" of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as Rep. Charles Rangel (D.N.Y.), one of his allies said Wednesday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) downplayed the seriousness of allegations against Rangel that he failed to disclose sources of income and pay taxes on some properties, saying that many lawmakers suffer from innocent lapses in judgment when filing mandatory financial disclosure forms.

Still, the "everybody's doing it" argument never worked with my mom and probably yours, either.

What kind of an argument is this, anyway? And how on earth can so many Democrats--who want to tax everybody for everything--be such deadbeats? It's not like this is the first Democrat with tax problems. But apparently, cheating is no big deal as long as you're a Democrat.

CBO: Baucus Bill Cuts Deficit By $81 Billion

Hard to swallow, but that's what the Congressional Budget Office is saying.

The Committee’s deficit neutral proposal will cost approximately $829 billion, about $55 billion more than the original pre mark-up version, but about $71 billion less than President Obama’s $900 billion target.

I'm curious to know if it still includes the tampon tax (of course not! It's now a breast pump tax) and what else to make this "deficit neutral." Oddly enough, I'd swear we were told the rest of us wouldn't be ponying up more to pay for Obamacare, but darn it if every time we turn around, there's not some new way we're gonna be chipping in.

As Ed Morrissey says,

Every time our health-care providers have to use these items, they will pay more for them — and pass that cost onto us. We may see that less directly thanks to the removal of the tampon tax, but the thousands of other items needed for our care will cost us more. We need to understand the scope of this tax before it breaks our backs.

The local trolls just keep buying the idea that we won't end up paying for this stuff, but it's clear we will, not merely through higher insurance premiums but through taxes on everything from Kotex to sodas. Sure, you can live without Coke, but women gotta have...well, you know.

Be that as it may, Allahpundit points out that it will be more difficult for Republicans to argue against the Baucus bill after this CBO report, and opposition has been softening over the last week or so anyway. Not sure why, exactly, since it isn't like these proposals haven't been out there before. It seems to me that this is just another case of "small government" Republicans forgetting what "small government" really is.

For the record, of course people like the idea of the government (a) paying for everything and (b) sticking it to the insurance companies. That's gonna sound really great until you start getting the taxes and rate hikes that will go with it (and I'm not even discussing rationing at this point. We can talk about that when your hip replacement gets pushed out an extra 18 months).

Thank God, We Won't Have to Deal With Any of

this once Obamacare goes through.

A woman faithfully pays her insurance premiums for years, then discovers she has not one but two brain tumors and the mean ol' insurance company won't pay up. Well, not until 100,000 MoveOn.org brainiacs nagged the company into paying for it! Now everything is okie dokie.

I'm just so grateful that under Obamacare, no one will ever be denied treatment again. I mean, that must be the point of these stories, right? The mean ol' insurance company denies claims just cuz they're greedy basterds. That treatment for two brain tumors probably cost about 50 cents. Greedy basterds didn't want 50 cents cutting into their ginormous bonuses.

Fortunately for all of us, under Obamacare, we won't have to worry about nasty insurance claims people denying treatment cuz, well, when the government decides some treatment is too expensive, we won't have any idea who to call or complain to. And even if we did, it's not like it will change anything. I mean, you know how much the IRS will really snap to attention whenever you call them to complain about something. Or the post office. Or Veterans' Affairs. I mean, the response rate is outstanding!

In truth, I kinda feel sorry for all my friends who really hate insurance companies and don't realize that Obamacare will give them all the downsides of insurance (high premiums--except we'll call them "taxes", long waits, bureaucratic snafus, denial of care, and no recourse) without any of the benefits (choice, choice, choice). And I'm actually going to enjoy watching their grins fade when they discover that Obamacare doesn't mean free care for everyone.

Overcriminalization

Something both the Left and the Right should be able to agree on is the overcriminalization of essentially unknowing or careless acts.

Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.

That's right. Orchids.

By March 2004, federal prosecutors were well on their way to turning 66-year-old retiree George Norris into an inmate in a federal penitentiary - based on his home-based business of cultivating, importing and selling orchids...

Mr. Norris ended up spending almost two years in prison because he didn't have the proper paperwork for some of the many orchids he imported. The orchids were all legal - but Mr. Norris and the overseas shippers who had packaged the flowers had failed to properly navigate the many, often irrational, paperwork requirements the U.S. imposed when it implemented an arcane international treaty's new restrictions on trade in flowers and other flora.

The judge who sentenced Mr. Norris had some advice for him and his wife: "Life sometimes presents us with lemons." Their job was, yes, to "turn lemons into lemonade."

The judge apparently failed to appreciate how difficult it is to run a successful lemonade stand when you're an elderly diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinson's disease serving time in a federal penitentiary. If only Mr. Norris had been a Libyan terrorist, maybe some European official at least would have weighed in on his behalf to secure a health-based mercy release.

Those on the Left often complain that George W. Bush "shredded the Constitution" after 9/11, but the U.S. government has been actively expanding its power to snoop, inspect, and pry into Americans' lives without warrants or cause for most of the last 30 years. The first excuse was the War on Drugs, allowing police officers to search cars for ordinary traffic stops, hold suspects until the suspect defecated, snooped into homes with infrared cameras and more. After 9/11, the government used terrorist attacks as the latest excuse for more snooping, spying and surveilling.

Now, we're faced with more than simply snooping and spying. The article cited cases of ordinary citizens making simple mistakes--inappropriate paperwork or failure to place a sticker on a UPS package--to lock those citizens away in federal penitentiaries for years.

It's one thing when people knowingly and willfully commit crimes. But the activities discussed in this article and by the House Judiciary committee on overcriminalization simply do not rise to the same levels. These are crimes based on vague laws written intentionally without specifics. Such cases are shameful.

Fox to Fire Beck?

That's a HuffPo fantasy to be sure, but it's instructive of what the Left doesn't get about either Glenn Beck or Fox News.

When news show host Glenn Beck explicitly called Barack Obama a racist, it caused a media hailstorm and an advertising exodus from his show that reached as far as the U.K (Beck's show is broadcast on Murdoch's 'Sky News' channel). On a recent political talk show tour, President Obama sat down with five networks, none of which were Fox. The Murdoch-owned network was humiliatingly replaced with the Spanish language channel Univison. In another spat, the White House press secretary publicly criticized the network for not airing Obama's health care speech, a move it would never have considered with any other network.

While Glenn Beck is not the lone voice of dissent within Fox News (O'Reilly, Hannity and Malkin are similarly offensive), he does epitomize what is wrong with the network, and just how out of sync it is with the mainstream. His continued assault on the President which consists of a remarkable slew of accusations and innuendo (Obama is a socialist/communist/Nazi/racist), does not reflect well on the network, regardless of how right wing it is.

Teh One's snubbing of Fox News says far more about him than it does about either Rupert Murdoch or Fox News itself. Liberals hated Fox News long before Beck moved to that network and will hate it long after Beck has fizzled out. Why? Because Fox News has dared to offer news and perspective that is not "the mainstream," which is to say, isn't liberal.

Most Americans have argued for 40 years that news organizations are too liberal, but it's only been in the last 15 or so that those same viewers have had an alternative to the liberal bullshit of the MSM. That alternative is Fox News, and despite the hopes and prayers of HuffPo writers, it's not about to tank any time soon.

Both Beck and Fox News have managed to scoop "the mainstream" multiple times, the only sort of "snubbing" that actually matters. And as HopeNChange continues to fumble, flub, and flip-flop, Fox News will continue to chronicle it. Will Murdoch fire Beck? I have no idea but there's no reason to think so at this point. His ratings are fine and he's no more unreasonable than Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow. When you see MSNBC dropping those clowns, maybe Beck should moderate.

SNL Mocks Obama

Christ, Christianity, Politics and Liberal Idiocy

That's quite an all-encompassing headline for a post that started with this Alan Colmes's post that led to this post which bashes both the GOP and Christianity quite effectively. Well, not quite.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a conference for my church and picked up a book titled They Like Jesus but Not the Church. I haven't gotten into it very far yet (had other things I needed to read first), but the basic premise is that we live in a post-Christian society which looks very disfavorably upon Christianity and is openly hostile to it. At the same time, more people look favorably upon Jesus. These two ideas sound like they would create some cognitive dissonance, but the fact of the matter is that we live in a culture (of which both posts are examples) that is contemptuous of Christianity and has lots of misconceptions and mischaracterizations about Christians.

From the Wolfrum post:

For years, Jesus Christ had kept quiet while his “followers” had killed and committed horrendous acts of intolerance in his name. They were the “birth pangs” of a new religion, his surrogates would say. One day he would be accepted by all as a liberator.

But in an announcement that has left his followers shaken, the Christ himself has come forward to announce that he is leaving Christianity, effective immediately. The reasoning: The 2008 Republican Platform. Reached for comment at a West Hollywood coffee shop, Christ said that he couldn’t deal with a world that so misinterpreted his words and actions.

“They mention the word ‘faith’ 12 times in their platform,” said Christ. “Do they think we’re idiots or something?”

Christ went on to say that he had grown tired of being portrayed as a “marauding archangel of vengeance,” and that he held out little hope that the world would ever accept his message of peace.

Not only does this pervert what Jesus actually said (and didn't say), but it manages to tie the basest of smears to the GOP as though the Republican platform itself is the measure of Christianity. Why not bring up the Democratic Party platform, which also discussed faith?

Of course, the point of such slams is not to understand who Christ is, what his mission for the church is and has been or protecting the freedom to worship Him in private and in public. It's really just another way of bashing the GOP and Christians--two groups the left hates--with one blow.

Is the Health Care Debate Over?

First, from the New York Times:

Health Overhaul Is Drawing Close to Floor Debate

With the Senate Finance Committee set to approve its health care bill this week, Democrats are tantalizingly close to bringing legislation that would make sweeping changes in the nation’s health care system to the floor of both houses of Congress.

Party leaders still face immense political and policy challenges as they combine rival proposals — two bills in the Senate and three in the House. But the broad contours of the legislation are in place: millions of uninsured Americans would get subsidized health benefits, and the government would move to slow the growth of health spending.

Now read this from Hot Air:
Shhh--White House Negotiating For Public Option Behind the Scenes.

Then move on to Real Clear Politics:
Destroying Private Health Insurance

The Baucus bill includes an "individual mandate" that requires everyone to buy health insurance-but not inexpensive, high-deductible catastrophic health insurance. Instead, it imposes a requirement for pricier comprehensive coverage that pays for routine costs like annual checkups. The bill then requires that insurance companies provide coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, and that they charge customers at high risk of medical problems the same rates as those with lower risks-which means that these extra expenses will have to be paid for by raising everyone else's premiums.

And then the Baucus bill delivers the knock-out punch: after forcing us into expensive comprehensive insurance plans and driving up the cost of those plans, the bill would impose a massive 40% tax on "gold-plated" plans-which turn out to include the health-insurance plans of many in the middle class. So that drives up the cost of insurance even higher.

You can see why it doesn't much matter whether or not we have a "public option" in the original bill. Everything else in the bill is designed to make private health insurance unaffordable-so that in a few years, people will clamor for a government-subsidized "public option," and the same politicians who destroyed private health insurance can make a big show of coming to the rescue of their victims.

Democrats haaaaate private insurance. With a passion. Except, of course, for themselves or when Ted Kennedy needs new brain cancer treatments, but it's really mean to point these democrisies out.

I've had this discussion with various (liberal) friends over the last four months, and they honestly believe that (a) socialized medicine would be hunky dory for all of us and (b) we could implement this plan and everybody would still be able to keep the insurance they now enjoy. Of course, it's impolite to call my friends "liars," and so I don't. Maybe they are just naive or misinformed. If they were simply some of the dorks who visit here periodically from the left, I'd probably call their bullshit straight up. But given that these are people I know very well and like, I try to be more restrained.

The RCP piece is excellent, and goes on to describe what we are in for here:

What happens after people have been forced out of private insurance and into government-run insurance? Well, that's already happened for everyone over the age of 65, and Obama's plans for Medicare gives us a preview of our future under a government-run system.

President Obama and the Democrats are proposing large cuts to Medicare ($500 billion), including cuts to payments to cardiologists and oncologists. Gee, who typically needs cardiologists and oncologists most? 25-year-olds?

It's no accident that the Democrats want to cut payments for Medicare now, just as the Baby Boomers are hitting retirement. Baby Boomers are used to getting what they want and letting future generations pay for it. But now, Democrats are looking to create Obamacare using seniors as their Soylent Green (yes, I said that).

Democrats mocked townhall protesters for saying, "Keep your hands off my Medicare," and for worrying about "death panels." But both cases are essentially true. Seniors are dependent on Medicare for their health care in ways the rest of us don't have to deal with, and they know that cuts to doctors they depend on (such as cardiologists and oncologists) is condemning them as surely as any "death panel" would. The fact that Democrats are determined to inflict this disaster on us, despite public opposition tells you what HopeNChange was really all about. Elections do have consequences.

News Flash: People More Concerned About Keeping Their Insurance

Talk about a Duh! moment.

Fear of losing private insurance trumps public option

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters nationwide say guaranteeing that no one is forced to change their health insurance coverage is a higher priority than giving consumers the choice of a "public option" health insurance company.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 29% take the opposite view. They say it’s more important to give people a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option.

Most liberal voters say giving people the choice of a public option is more important. But most moderates put guaranteeing that no one is forced to change their health insurance first, and conservatives overwhelmingly agree with them.

The fact that the Democrats are hellbent on having a public option first shows how out of touch with regular people they are.

Capitalist Pig's Capitalism Tanks

I'm a Christian, but sometimes, you have to believe in karma. To wit: Michael Moore's: Capitalism: A Love Story tanks at the box office.

Moore was last seen telling a reporter that "Capitalism did nothing for me," and with results like this, he might be right.

Media Matters: We Defend School Officials Who Don't Protect Your Children

It's kind of pathetic watching Media Matters try so hard to protect liberals that they are now forced to defend Kevin Jennings, the Obama "school safety czar" who didn't worry about children's safety when it came to them having sex with adults.

This post practically cackles with glee at the idea that the student involved was 16 (not 15) and therefore of legal age to have bathroom sex with adults!

As Dan Riehl points out, it wasn't a "relationship," as MM tries to pretend it was.

It was a one night stand in a men's restroom after which it seems the older man didn't return the student's phone calls. Whether the student was straight or gay, does anyone really believe that a 15, or 16 year old student involved in restroom sex with total strangers is the bar we want to set for safe and acceptable behavior in our public schools? Give me a break. Media Matters might have done better to not engage this issue at all.

Indeed. Teachers have an obligation to report cases of suspected abuse, and Jennings was told it was "unethical" not to. What teacher would not understand that bathroom sex between a student--even a 16-year-old student--and an adult is not appropriate and should be taken to the authorities? It's not like teenagers have great problem-solving skills in the first place, but parents expect teachers to act in loco parentis--even with their 16-year-olds.

Chicago Loses Bid for Olympics

Thank God.

For the morons at Think Progress, who think mocking a Republican president is de rigeur but mocking the narcissistic bleatings of Teh One is tantamount to "hate," sweet, sweet tears. The reason conservatives cheer the pwning of Obama is the sheer hubris of the POTUS and FLOTUS, thinking that it is an appropriate use of the president's time to fly to Europe for such a singularly unimportant (not to mention costly) venture as the Olympics. Contrary to what the commenters say, the Olympics never bring more than temporary jobs to the host city, and the money spent hosting the Games is rarely retrieved. But keep coming up with original thoughts like, "Why does the Right hate America so much?"

UPDATE: I knew it! It's all George W. Bush's fault!

Note to moonbats. We have tougher immigration laws because of terrorist attacks. As the guy asking the immigration law question should know. It's not that we hate foreigners.

UPDATE x2: More bitch-slappin' of HopeNChange here.

I, for one, am exhausted by our new permanent campaign. That might sound strange coming from somebody who runs the Horse Race Blog, but it is true. The ominpresence of the Obama campaign apparatus is, frankly, wearing me down. I can’t get away from him or it, even in my down times. Watching the Office on TBS used to be a real pleasure for me and the missus, but now we must be interrupted by the President of the United States cracking lame jokes at us in the promotion of a second-rate comedian. There is no escape. And so it continues today. What should have been a story about Chicago - or better yet, Rio (good for you, Rio!) - is now a story about…Obama. Of course. Because just about everything in the public sphere must, must become a story about Obama. Because Obama injects himself and his campaign appartus/mindset/worldview into everything.

I was hesitant to place a bet on the outcome of the health care debates, but I’ll place one here. Sooner or later, the American people are going to say, “Enough is enough” with this constant, incessant politicking that is inevitably built around the person of Barack Obama.

UPDATE x3: More goodness.

The left confuses standing beside the nation in wartime — something the left by and large failed to do — with hoping an arrogant president and the corrupt City Hall machine that backs him fall flat on their faces on an international stage.

Judge Finds Texas Traditional Marriage Amendment Unconstitutional

What you can't get through the legislature, do through the courts.

A judge in Dallas has held that Texas' constitutional ban on gay marriage violates the 14th Amendment.

In an order signed Thursday in In the Matter of the Marriage of J.B. and H.B., 320th District Judge Tena Callahan held that Texas Constitution Article 1, §32(a), which provides that "marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman," violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Callahan further held that Texas Family Code §6.704, which addresses testimony of a man and wife in a suit for dissolution of a marriage, violates the 14th Amendment.

She prefaced those findings by writing that she was ruling "[o]n the limited issue of whether the Court has jurisdiction to divorce parties who have legally married in another jurisdiction and who otherwise meet the residency and other prerequisites required to file for a divorce in Dallas County, Texas." Callahan found that she has jurisdiction to hear a suit for divorce of two men legally married in another jurisdiction and struck the plea to the jurisdiction filed by the Texas Office of the Attorney General.

Of course, the couple does not meet the requirements to be married in Texas.

Sneaking Through Obamacare

They don't care about costs. They don't care about voters. They don't care that you don't want their bill. By God, they're gonna pass Obamacare and screw you.

From RedState:

The Vapor Bill is so named because there is no legislative language, which has several implications:

1) CBO cannot accurately score a bill without legislative language — there are too many opportunities for misinterpretation and errors that could add hundreds of billions to the score; and,

2) it will be impossible for Senators (obviously) to read the bill, and for the American people to read the bill.

The arrogance and pure disdain for the American public’s concerns about “getting it right” and their concerns about costs and government spending have been rejected out of hand by the Democrats in the Senate.

Call your Senators now. 202-224-3121

Afghanistan Was the War We Were Supposed to Fight

...in 2008. Now, it's just another issue under the bus.

Unemployment Rate Worse than Expected; Rises to 9.8%

Oh, for the good old days of 5% unemployment, when liberals bitched that it was still too many people without jobs. Or, better yet, they talked about "underemployment" as a way to gin up bigger numbers.

Now that we have a real unemployment rate bumping up against 10%, liberals aren't really wanting to talk about "underemployment." Well, unless they're advocating even more government spending that we can't afford. Otherwise, you only hear crickets chirping. That's because under the rules Democrats made regarding calamity, these disasterous unemployment figures are Obama's (just as 9/11 was all George W. Bush's fault, remember?).

These are gonna be some tough rules for them to live with.

Chart doesn't lie.

Oddly enough, the media covered it differently when Reagan's unemployment numbers were this high.

Letterman Blackmailed; Should We Feel Sorry for Him?

I read this morning that someone tried to blackmail David Letterman over his various sexual daliances with staffers. Allahpundit calls it "weird and awful." I just call it karma.

Perhaps I'd have more sympathy for Letterman had he not made a career of mocking others for doing this same thing. Letterman is a leftwing crank and Obama butt-licker to boot, so I just can't feel his pain too much. As Verum Serum notes,

What would Letterman be saying about this mess if it were happening to some politician instead of himself?

My bet is that he wouldn't pass up the opportunity to tell a few nasty jokes about it.