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An Emerging Center/Right House Coalition?

Mark Noonan

Interesting:

Some centrist House Democrats have reached out to Republicans to explore breaking with their party leadership on healthcare and crafting a reform bill with the rival GOP, one congressman claimed Saturday.

Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) asserted that an “interesting development” is taking place underway that, if true, could effectively remove Democratic leadership from the driver’s seat on healthcare reform legislation in the House.

“There’s an interesting development occurring behind the scenes, wherein moderate Democrats — so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats — and business-friendly new Democrats are actually starting to have conversations with us to build a coalition from the center outward, to actually really come up with substantive and well-founded healthcare reform,” Boustany said during an appearance on Fox News. “And that’s the only way to do this.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders have moved quickly to pass a preliminary version of healthcare legislation before the August recess in Congress.

And that is part of the reason Obama, Pelosi and Reid want it done so fast – to prevent just such opposition from gaining cohesion and popular traction.

Remember, the Democrat House majority is gained by the Democrats getting centrist and conservative Democrats to win in GOP and GOP-leaning districts in 2006 and 2008 (their Senate majority is less dependent upon this, but at least 7 of the 60 Democrats are such). Such a tactic is great for getting you the committee chairmanships and getting the left all atwitter about an alleged leftward surge of the electorate, but it has the drawback of filling up your caucus with people who daren’t go along with the party leadership on most issues. Right now, these center and conservative Democrats are facing a 2010 mid-term with no anti-GOP wave at their backs and the headwinds of an increasingly toxic Democrat brand-name coupled with increasingly unpopular Obama Administration policies.

Truth be told, most of these center and conservative Democrats would have run as GOPers had there (a) been an open GOP seat to run in and (b) if the GOP brand hadn’t been so badly knocked down by the GOP Congressional spending binge. This, by the way, argues very strongly for term limits – it just does so many wonderful things: prevents the creation of “Congressman-for-Life” members; allows there to be frequent “change” without the necessity of changing the party registration of the office-holder; periodically provides a whole, new crop of Congresscritters the lobbyists haven’t figured out how to bribe, etc, etc, etc., but I digress. These center and right Democrats can fall on their swords, back Obamacare, etc and then lose very badly in 2010 – or, they can buck their party and have at least a 50/50 shot at making it through. I think they’ll buck, and buck rather hard.

What this means for the GOP is that we have the materials right in front of us to rebuild a center/right majority in the House – to effectively shut down the Obama/Pelosi/Reid socialist steam roller. We should take this opportunity, and add to it the opportunity to put up libertarian candidates of a fiscal conservative/judicial restraint variety in moderate Democrat districts, and pick off a couple score of their seats, just as they did with a lot of ours. The future looks bright – provided we can just slow down Obamunism until 2010…even at the start of the year, it will be too late, because even Democrats in relatively safe seats won’t want to go to the mat for socialism at that point.

Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl

Mark Noonan

Remember the name. Do not just go about your business as if nothing is happening out there in the world.

This hero is being held prisoner by our most deadly enemies – if we cannot effect his release, he faces torture and murder. He’s giving his all for us, and we can at least give him a thought, and a prayer.

We Will Only Survive by Embracing the Culture of Life

Mark Noonan

Mark Steyn has another of his regular entries on demographics over at NRO’s The Corner, and concludes thusly:

…One can be pro- or anti-immigration but, either way, it doesn’t solve a baby bust as severe as Japan’s. Up north, Leonard Stern writes:

A nation that doesn’t replace itself becomes an aging nation, and that’s why economists are terrified. Old people no longer generate wealth, yet they require huge amounts of state support in the form of health care, pensions and other programs…

…If Canada has never really sounded the alarm about the low fertility rate, it’s because we had an antidote — immigration…

Now it turns out that the curative power of immigration was vastly overstated…

…The data show that the only way immigration could offset the declining birth rate is if Canada dismantles border controls and floods the country with well over a half million immigrants a year.

Even then, the government would need to impose rigid “age filters” to ensure that only young people are among the new arrivals.

The transformation of developed societies – either into old folks’ homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) – will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America – but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west.

For much of the developed world, the “credit crunch”, the debt burden, and the rest are not part of a cyclical economic downturn but the first manifestations of an existential crisis.

And even immigration – supposing you encouraged it heavily and carefully ensured that only young, healthy, educated people were allowed in – is only a short-term solution as the Third World goes from baby boom to baby bust. Some Developing World nations below replacement-level fertility are: Vietnam, Algeria, China, Iran, Thailand, Cuba, Russia, Ukraine and South Korea. Mexico’s fertility rate is rapidly declining, though it is still a bit over replacement at 2.3 children per woman. India has a lower fertility rate than Israel. As we can see, it doesn’t really matter what sort of government you have nor what sort of cultural background is dominant – fertility rates are on a very, very rapid downward spiral.

Why is this?

Because the Culture of Death has taken the world by the throat. What is the Culture of Death? Well, its most notable manifestations are abortion and euthanasia but it must be kept in mind that these two things are not the disease – they are just a symptom. The disease is the materialist concept of life – that we are mere biological accidents of no great importance and thus our only real concern is our personal happiness. And some times “personal happiness” can really just boil down to “momentary convenience”. In those rapidly shrinking areas of the world where the Culture of Death hasn’t come to maturity the nations most firmly in it’s grip are assiduously exporting death and despair. Only an embrace of the Culture of Life will save us – essentially, turning back towards what God made us to be.

Unless we embrace Life, we’ll die. And don’t think it will be an easy death – it won’t just be the last latte-sipping geezer dropping dead over the final issue of the New York Times. We’ll have societal chaos – complete breakdown as the world starves for lack of people to maintain the infrastructure, and bitter fights over the remaining resources, now that we lack the people to develope any more. And the final nightmare might be a world run by Islamo-fascists, as they have birth rates that are falling at a slightly slower rate than the rest of the world’s – which means there will come a time when they simply have more young men fit to fight than everyone else does, combined.

Now, mea culpa – I, too, jumped on the bandwagon for the Culture of Death. I eschewed marriage and children in favor of selfishness and despair. I can’t undo what I’ve done – but I can (and do) encourage people to do pretty much the opposite of what I did 18-28. Get married; have children – its what we’re made for. We’re healthiest when we join together in permanent union and raise children together. It is the path of sacrifice; of love; of hope – of humanity. You might not have as nice an SUV as the DINKs down the street, but you’ll be happier, healthier and far more human.

And we must, also, undo those legislative, regulatory and judicial actions which have put government on the side of the Culture of Death. China’s “one-child” policy is just a more extreme example of, say, the United States government providing funds for birth control in high school. Its all of a piece – and all of it is an encouragement of death, slow or rapid. Our proper job is to encourage family formation and child-rearing.

Was Zelaya Rigging the Proposed Honduran Vote?

Mark Noonan

Certainly worth looking in to:

A Catalan newspaper is reporting that Honduran authorities have seized computers found in the Presidential Palace belonging to deposed president Mel Zelaya. Taking a page right out of the leftist dictator’s handbook, these computers, according to the news report, contained the official and certified results of the illegal constitutional referendum Zelaya wanted to conduct that never took place. The results of this fraudulent vote was tilted heavily in Zelaya’s favor, ensuring he could go ahead and illegally change the constitution so he could remain in power for as long as he wanted to. ACORN, I’m sure, is taking notes.

This is the man that the OAS, the UN, and the Obama State Department want the Honduran people to reinstall as their leader.

The more we hear of Zelaya, the more it seems that the Honduran democracy struck a blow against a budding tyrant. And it is high time for Obama to rethink his knee-jerk support for Zelaya…and maybe apply a little bit of his non-interference to Honduras.

Obama's Deficits Risk His Presidency

Mark Noonan

Victor Davis Hanson notes:

…lost in such economic talkfests are the psychological implications of large deficits upon the voters. It may be true that the American people care more about unemployment and inflation than deficits. Or maybe they are not all that concerned about the interconnections between the former and the latter. But in recent years, as budget shortfalls soared, that old wisdom seems less and less compelling.

Consider the political effects of Bill Clinton’s two budget surplus years — and ignore the ongoing argument to what effect they were the result of creative accounting, not sustainable, or any of the other conservatives rationalizations use to deprecate the achievement. The truth is that they were, and are, now acccepted as unusual achievements…

…what is forgotten is that Bush paid a terrible price for his deficit spending. His unpopularity was not entirely due to Iraq, but finally in large part to the notion that our national debt after eight years of unprecedented borrowing has soared to $11 trillion. He desperately tried to convince Americans that his tax cuts had stimulated the economy (quite true), and had led to greater aggregate revenue than ever before (quite amazingly so)…

If Obama’s deficits remain high – and there is no indication that they will drop to anything reasonable before 2012 – then Obama may very well pay a high price at the polls, especially if the deficits are requiring high inflation, high taxes and high interest rates in order to maintain our bond rating. Can Obama finesse himself around this and still be re-elected in 2012? Anything is possible – but Obama’s best hope is to go on a crash course of spending reduction next year.

We’ll see what he chooses.

Larry Summers Proves He's a Dolt

Mark Noonan

Geesh:

Of all the statistics pouring into the White House every day, top economic adviser Larry Summers highlighted one Friday to make his case that the economic free-fall has ended.

The number of people searching for the term “economic depression” on Google is down to normal levels, Summers said.

Are you frickin’ kidding me? This is the level of competence we’ve got in the Obama Administration?

This long four years gets longer by the day, it seems….

Weekly Recap (2009-07-18)

Matt Margolis

Senate Minority Leader Will Vote Against Sotomayor

Mark Noonan

Good man:

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell will formally announce his opposition to Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in a floor speech on Monday, July 20. The following are unembargoed excerpts from his prepared remarks:

“From the beginning of this confirmation process, I’ve said that Americans expect one thing when they walk into a court room, whether it’s a traffic court or the Supreme Court — and that’s equal treatment under the law. Over the years, Americans have accepted significant ideological differences in the kinds of men and women that various presidents have nominated to the Supreme Court. But one thing Americans will never tolerate in a nominee is a belief that some groups are more deserving of a fair shake than others. Nothing could be more offensive to the American sensibility than that. Judge Sotomayor is a fine person with an impressive story and a distinguished background. But above all else, a judge must check his or her personal or political agenda at the courtroom door and do justice even-handedly, as the judicial oath requires.”

“Judge Sotomayor’s record of written statements suggest an alarming lack of respect for the notion of equal justice, and therefore, in my view, an insufficient willingness to abide by the judicial oath…”

Sotomayor is manifestly unqualified to be on any court, let alone the Supreme Court (yes, liberals, I know she advanced under GOP Presidents, too…but using that as some sort of “gotcha” against GOP opposition to her appointment just shows you are either (a) liars or (b) entirely ignorant about how judicial nominations are done). Senator McConnell has done the right thing, and I hope he manages to convince the entire Senate GOP to vote against. We can’t stop this unqualified person from sitting on our Supreme Court, but we can register our disdain for the racial pandering Obama is using in this Supreme Court nomination in order to secure a lock-step, leftist vote on the Court.

Phrase of the Day

Mark Noonan

Did liberals ever like democracy?

…many men are now beginning to say that the democratic ideal is no longer in touch with the modern spirit. I strongly agree; and I naturally prefer the democratic ideal, which is at least an ideal, and therefore, an idea, to the modern spirit, which is simply modern, therefore, already becoming ancient. I notice that the cranks, whom it would be more polite to call the idealists, are already hastening to shed this ideal. A well-known Pacifist, with whom I argued in Radical papers in my Radical days, and who then passed as a pattern Republican of the new Republic, went out of his way the other day to say, ‘The voice of the people is commonly the voice of Satan.’ The truth is that these Liberals never did really believe in popular government, any more than in anything else that was popular, such as pubs or the Dublin Sweepstake. They did not believe in the democracy they invoked against kings and priests. But I did believe in it; and I do believe in it, though I much preferred to invoke it against prigs and faddists. I still believe it would be the most human sort of government, if it could be once more attempted in a more human time. – G K Chesterton

I agree; liberals never really did…because “democracy” means that those working and middle class pinheads will rule the roost, not well-trained liberals who know what’s what.