Moving…
Due to some restrictions that I just couldn’t abide by, I’m moving my blog to http://jasonhigh.blogspot.com.
Hope to see you over there.
Democrats are in serious, serious trouble…
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
