Blogs For Victory

From Allahpundit:

…It’s possible, I suppose, that the guy who created the page simply took it down himself, but why he’d do that before the day is over and without any sort of farewell post escapes me. We got a bunch of e-mails this morning claiming that the page had been removed briefly and put back online shortly thereafter, so maybe this is FB’s version of a compromise: Leave it up for most of the day, then censor it a few hours early as a sop to the nuts who are freaking out in Pakistan. If so, it’s a neat illustration of Matt Welch’s point that the more urgent threat to free speech comes not from bomb-toting jihadis but from western media that’s overly eager to avoid giving offense…

I suspect “chicken” will best describe what caused the problems with the Face book page.

Attentive readers know that I would not participate in such a thing – offering egregious insult is un-Christian. I’ve got enough personal failures in following Christ, I don’t need to add to them. That said, it is disturbing the way so many people are fearful of Islam.

I doubt much that there is an actual concern for the religious sensibilities of Moslems involved here. The people who took this down have no problem with the pages where the following sentiment is expressed:

I despise in your face christians, all ways trying convert everybody. (expletive deleted) scumbags should be executed, i’d pay to see it

So, it must be just rank fear – they are afraid of a violent reaction from Islamists if they allow the “Draw” page to continue. It is, of course, a real fear – but the answer to it is not to cravenly delete anything which might offend Moslems bot, rather, to either make a policy of absolute free speech, or a policy banning any insults to religious doctrine. Either would be more courageous than what is happening now.

UPDATE: Jewish Business Magazine says it was a hack job, not an act of cowardice.

People, I guess, don’t like what they see:

President Barack Obama has seen has approval ratings decline in the aftermath of his selecting pro-abortion Solicitor general Elena Kagan for the open Supreme Court position. Obama’s approval ratings are at one of their lowest points in the last month and heading back down to their health care-dominated levels.

The Rasmussen Reports daily presidential tracking poll for Thursday shows 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance.

That compares with 53 percent who disapprove — giving Obama an overall -8 percentage point approval rating.

Among the most passionate voters on either side, 42 percent of voters strongly disapprove of Obama’s performance in office while just 26 percent strongly approve – a -16 point rating among the most ardent voters.

I think it might be because she’s so clearly a hack – just someone appointed to do as the left demands in Court issues. Everyone expected a mindless drone for the left out of Obama – but not, perhaps, someone so clearly drone-like.

Obama just keeps missing his chances to really make his mark on American history – to do the things he said in the campaign. There are scores of people out there – including a few “wet” Republicans – Obama could have appointed, assured a pretty liberal Justice and yet not been so clearly ideological in his action.

And as time goes on, I don’t see it even remotely dawning on Obama how out of touch he’s become.

On the floor on the US House:

From The Hill:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a message for Republicans this fall: Bring it on…

…Despite some predictions of a huge GOP wave this fall, Pelosi says it’s not going to happen: “One thing I know for sure is that Democrats will retain their majority in the House of Representatives.”

When one realizes that Critz ran against ObamaCare and in favor of gun rights and against DC – ie, against Pelosi – then the message one takes away is that Pelos is simply hoping to duplicate her efforts of 2006 and 2008: she wants to run in GOP and conservative districts with centrist, “blue dog” types who, once elected, will be slavishly devoted to Pelosi and the liberal agenda.

To be sure, she must expect that a lot of Democrats will lose in November – but she’s expecting to moderate the losses to the point where 218 people have “D” after their names on November 3rd. And, truth be told, she can do that – entirely within the realm of possibility. If – and its a big if – the voters in various districts can be essentially fooled as badly as they were in 2006 and 2008.

I don’t think, however, she’ll be as successful as the hopes. The peculiarities of the PA-12 special won’t carry over even in to the PA-12 general in November. There’s at least an even money chance that in the re-match, Burns will come out on top (a lot of that will be determined by how well Toomey does at the top of the PA ticket…if he wins, he might carry a few over the finish line with him). The impending Djou win in the Hawaii special is probably more indicative of November.

Good to keep in mind that Democrats in the special elections leading up to 2006 lost and lost and lost…and then won. It can work like that – and I think it will.

Like this – back in PA, Sestak is riding high from his amazing, come-from-behind win over entrenched, establishment-backed Arlen Specter. And yet Rasmussen has him, in that blue State, only up by 4 over Toomey who has been off the public radar while Specter and Sestak battled it out. That is the sort of bounce which vanishes – and Toomey’s first post-primary ad will, I think, be highly effective in starting to define Sestak as too liberal for Pennsylvania.

I still make no public predictions beyond my 30-35 House seat gain of earlier. Pelosi would be happy with that – and so would I: she’d be happy she gets to continue to be boss, I’d be happy that she and her Democrats would get full blame for the upcoming double-dip heading in to the 2012 cycle. But the ultimate outcome of November will be defined by two things:

1. Public anger about government as an entity.

2. The GOP’s ability to craft a message appealing to this.

The first is a given, the second is up to the GOP. Right message properly presented and the results in November will be astounding. Absent that, the GOP will still score gains, but not of any historical significance. We’ll see how it comes out.

UPDATE: Either convinced they can win or composing a political suicide note, Democrats look for big tax and spend bill before Memorial Day.

Bring it on, Nancy!

…and, you know, who cares? Just another politician putting together a few sound bites, pestering us for votes. But then I clicked on it…

Bringing slavish devotion to Islamo-fascism to new lows:

It is not “al-Quds”. I has never been that – it is Jerusalem; that is what the city has always been called. It is the capitol city of Israel – bogus stories of Mohammed flying there on a winged horse notwithstanding.

Just burns me up to see the way the Obama Administration hits their knees with such regularity as regards Islam.

Yet more liberal fascism on the march:

…The DISCLOSE Act’s purpose, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Chris Van Hollen and other “reformers,” is simply to require disclosure of corporate and union political speech after the Supreme Court’s January decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission held that the government could not ban political expenditures by companies, nonprofit groups, and labor unions.

The bill, however, would radically redefine how the FEC regulates political commentary. A section of the DISCLOSE Act would exempt traditional media outlets from coordination regulations, but the exemption does not include bloggers, only “a communication appearing in a news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication…”

They really want us to go away – and, no, they don’t mean all the blogosphere. You know darn well that Daily Kos and Democrat Underground will not feel the regulatory heat. No conservative would ever complain about a liberal blogger, but liberals would launch endless complaints. We on the right would be harassed out of existence.

Which is the whole point of DISCLOSE and, indeed, of campaign finance laws in general. Power elites – including some allegedly on the right – just can’t stand it when someone asks an uncomfortable question. We’re supposed to be watching American Idol, not pestering our political leaders. The powerful want to get on with the vital work of government (enriching themselves and cronies) and don’t want to bother with the people.

And so campaign finance law after campaign finance law – all ostensibly designed to cut the power of “the rich” in politics, but after decades of new laws, does anyone want to argue that “the rich” are less influential than before? The real way to beat the power of the vested interests is to allow the people to do whatever they please – 300 million Americans, well informed, will be more than a match for any particular wire puller.

One of the things we’ll have to do, once back in power, is to re-codify American law – go through it from page one to page last and simply get rid of all the laws built up over a century to hamstring the people. A long, difficult task, but the future of American liberty depends on it.

The accelerating trend:

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren’t taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn’t fix Medicare soon, there’ll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress’ promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”

What this means: unless Obama forces doctors to work for a national health service, there simply won’t be enough doctors to provide the care for all the people Obama wants to cover. Once again, liberal theory is coming up hard against reality.

People who don’t work for government tend to be people who don’t want to work for government. Outside of police, firefighters and a selection of the teachers, most people get in to government work because it is undemanding while having ok pay and great benefits. People who want to do demanding work look elsewhere – and people who are willing to trade gold-plated benefits for the chance at really advancing themselves also look elsewhere.

This is why government is filled with time servers – and Obama wants to force our entire health care system in to this. It won’t work – it can’t work. It’ll be a disaster where we’ll have less access to substandard card at a massive cost to the taxpayer.

But that doesn’t matter to Obama and his Democrats – it never was about health care, but about control. They want we, the people, under their thumb and stealing our health care is the best means to do so.

This takes a lot of guts:

…Giving predictions for November’s midterms, Gingrich said House Republicans will pick up “somewhere between 40 and 65 or 70 seats” — enough to gain control of the House. “I believe John Boehner will be speaker in January,” he said.

Gingrich said he even sees a chance of Republican control of the Senate. “If they can beat Barbara Boxer [in California], I think that [Mitch] McConnell is going to be the Senate majority leader.”…

You say so, Newt – but now if it doesn’t come out that way, it will pretty much toast up your chances for the GOP nomination in 2012. On the other hand, if it works out, then Gingrich looks like a visionary.

As for me, I’m just hopeful for some solid gains and a continued revitalization of the American spirit. If we can knock the left on the head and emerge well placed for 2012, I’ll be happy…217 House members and 49 Senators is ok with me.

The fading of the narcissistic and irresponsible “Boomers” is, perhaps, allowing a rise not so much conservative but humane values:

As LifeNews.com reported, the May 3-6 Gallup poll revealed 47 percent of Americans say they are pro-life on abortion versus 45 percent who say they are “pro-choice,” supporting legal abortions.

That included 47 percent of 18-29 year-olds who say they are pro-life, an increase of five percent from the 2008 Gallup figures.

And 45 percent of Americans aged 30-49 said they are pro-life, an increase of three percent from 2008 and an increase of five percent from 2006.

There is much to be distressed about in America’s youth – but with all their problems, they yet provide military personnel the equal to any of our past and rebels as stout as Samuel Adams…and now added to the wonderful mix, an increasing concern for the least among us. God works, as we say, in mysterious ways and it could be that after a couple generations of increasing depravity that we are now faced with a group of young people burnt out on their elders idiocy – they are seeking truth, and we know they shall find what they seek.

There are massive social pathologies in America – a nation which fears that its children may be molested at any moment is not a nation in good moral health. But the seeds of a reborn America are showing up everywhere and I am heartened by what I see and hear.