Blogs For Victory

A Gallup poll released today shows that more Republicans rate their mental health as excellent than Democrats.

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

Read the whole thing, it is quite interesting. Especially this part:

One could be quick to assume that these differences are based on the underlying demographic and socioeconomic patterns related to party identification in America today. A recent Gallup report (see “Strong Relationship Between Income and Mental Health” in Related Items) reviewed these mental health data more generally, and found that men, those with higher incomes, those with higher education levels, and whites are more likely than others to report excellent mental health. Some of these patterns describe characteristics of Republicans, of course.

But an analysis of the relationship between party identification and self-reported excellent mental health within various categories of age, gender, church attendance, income, education, and other variables shows that the basic pattern persists regardless of these characteristics. In other words, party identification appears to have an independent effect on mental health even when each of these is controlled for.

The reason for this relationship is not known.

The reason the relationship exists between being a Republican and more positive mental health is unknown, and one cannot say whether something about being a Republican causes a person to be more mentally healthy, or whether something about being mentally healthy causes a person to choose to become a Republican (or whether some third variable is responsible for causing both to be parallel).

This report seems to confirm my longheld belief that in order to vote Democrat, you have to be somewhat crazy.

Watching? Feel free to discuss.

UPDATE: Well, that was a rather disappointing debate. Not because of the answers (though some were better than others) but many of the questions selected were awful. So many were loaded questions or presumptuous. I got the impression that there were some that weren’t even submitted by Republican voters (the target audience) and that was annoying. Still, the Republican candidates certainly demonstrated once again that they can handle a debate in unfriendly territory, with some lousy questions, and a crappy moderator. Meanwhile, Democrats are still too chicken to participate in a debate on FOX News.

I didn’t see the Democrats’ CNN/YouTube debate, so I can’t compare the two. So, if anyone here did watch both, I’d like to hear about the differences.

The most ridiculous moment of the debate was when the openly gay retired Army Colonel asked his question about the Republicans’ positions on gays in the military and lo and behold, after the candidate gave their answers, we learned the guy was actually in the audience, were he was given the chance to say whether or not he was satisfied with the answers. Of course he wasn’t. And we know why…

Apparently he is connected to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

It turns out that Keith Kerr, retired Colonel., U.S. Army; retired Brigadier General, California National Reserve, who submitted a YouTube question about gays in the military, is actually a member of Hillary Clinton’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual Americans For Hillary Steering Committee. He’s also part of a film production crew trying overturn the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

I’m not sure what the rules of the debate were, and if only Republican voters were supposed to submit questions, but having someone involved in the Hillary campaign not only ask a question, but be granted a unique chance to explain whether or not he was satisfied with the responses, was either the result of severe sloppiness or bias on CNN’s part.

The exchange on waterboarding and torture was interesting. McCain’s personal experience with torture made it impossible for anyone to assertively disagree with him on the issue of waterboarding. Romney could have handled it better though. While his point about not laying out what forms of interrogation will and will not be used on captured terrorists, what was really missing was the point that waterboarding is not torture.

The Cheney cartoon? Give me a break.

I can’t really say who I felt won or lost, since I did miss some parts of the debate. Each had their good moments and bad moments. I don’t know how many undecided Republicans made their decisions tonight, but I will close by saying that I was never really impressed by the whole YouTube debate concept, and I’m still unimpressed.

So, now Bill Clinton is jumping on the “I always opposed the war in Iraq” train.

Does Bill Clinton forget signing the Iraq Liberation Act? Or the fact that his administration was advocating the use of military force against Iraq for years — as were many leaders in the Democratic Party. The problem for Democrats today is that Iraq, for them, is not a national security issue, but a political issue. As Democrats become increasingly more beholden to the interests of the extremist anti-war base of their party, they all have to rewrite their own history and present themselves as longtime opponents of the war. John Kerry did the same thing in 2004 during his presidential campaign… as did John Edwards. Bill Clinton clearly has to follow suit for the sake of his political partner Hillary’s campaign.

In the beginning there was plenty of support for the war in Iraq. Bush’s approval ratings even went up after we first went in. But, Democrats will take any position depending on how the political winds are blowing. They have no backbones and no conviction.

Does it really surprise anyone that Massachusetts would take the initiative in dismantling parental rights?

The New York Sun reports…

With the eyes of the world focused on the Middle East peace talks in Annapolis, Md., President Bush’s war tsar, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, quietly announced that the American and Iraqi governments will start talks early next year to bring about an end to the allied occupation by the close of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

The negotiations will bring to a formal conclusion the U.N. Chapter 7 Security Council involvement in the occupation and administration of Iraq, and are expected to reduce the number of American troops to about 50,000 troops permanently stationed there but largely confined to barracks, from the current 164,000 forces on active duty.

“The basic message here should be clear. Iraq is increasingly able to stand on its own. That’s very good news. But it won’t have to stand alone,” General Lute yesterday told reporters in the White House.

Since my lunch hour is just about ending, I’ll give my thoughts on this later. In the meantime, please discuss.

HAT TIP: Right in a Left World.

UPDATE: Press briefing.

As evidence mounts proving that the surge is working far better than predicted, it is hardly surprising that Democrats like John “ABSCAM” Murtha are not only saying that such progress is irrelevant, but that we’re doomed to be defeated anyway.

Seems that the UN is so doing:

New York, Nov 19, 2007 (CNA).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Martino, said this week the recent resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly calling for an international moratorium on the application of the death penalty is a “relevant step” in the defense of life, although it only has “symbolic value” since it is not “an agreement that binds countries.”

The resolution, which was supported by 99 countries, with 52 voting against and 33 abstaining, “is very important, and it is gratifying that so many Catholic organizations have worked for this and thus they have the right to be pleased.”

“I am very happy,” Cardinal Martino said. “I was the Holy See’s representative to the United Nations for more than 16 years and during that time I collaborated in two efforts during the 90’s to achieve this moratorium: we worked very hard and we were discouraged when the votes were tallied, the project had to be withdrawn because the numbers were just not there. This time the numbers are there and for this reason I am very pleased.”

Mario Marazzit, a spokesman for the Sant’Egidio Community, said, “The vote is historic, because it is very strong moral pressure and it points to a standard that has become important for all of the countries that do not use the death penalty yet.” He said he was hopeful the resolution would have an impact on the laws in individual countries.

One does question the actual motivations of the UN in lining up against the death penalty – but more importantly, it allows us to ask the basic question of the anti-death penalty forces worldwide: Why do you want the death penalty banned?

I know, it seems obvious – because killing people isn’t the answer. The problem is that most people who want to spare the lives of guilty criminals are also in favor of ending the life of innocent, unborn children. This is especially true of the UN, which has essentially taken the pro-abortion fanatic line on how available abortion should be – on demand. If killing is wrong, then abortion is wrong – but that seems to be something the anti-death penalty movement almost entirely misses.

As for me, it is easy – I’m opposed to abortion, and the death penalty. The reason I’m opposed to it is because one can never be 100% sure of what a person deserves to have happen to him. Certainly, the guilt of those on death row is not in doubt – the mental gymnastics some people go through to try and claim that an innocent man is on death row are rather bizarre, and pathetic. But even the guilty have a claim upon our mercy – a small claim, to be sure, but still very real. I don’t support an outright ban on the death penalty because there may always be that circumstance where it is the only thing we can do in the name of justice, but on the whole I would see these men and women sentenced to a life in prison – and really in prison. I’ve got a prison regimen ready for them which will make them wish they were dead…unless, of course, they start to think about it and understand the debt they owe; such people will come to love their regimen as the basis of their path to salvation…those who don’t get it will, then, get nothing but misery, and that is just.

I doubt that most anti-death penalty people can give a strong defense of their view – they can mostly shout slogans and appeal to emotion, but I’ve yet to see a carefully reasoned justification for ending the death penalty except by those opponents who are also of the Culture of Lfe, and thus also opposed to abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia. During the 2000 campaign you migth recall how the left tried to cook up a death penalty case to embarras then-governor Bush – Bush couldn’t actually commute the man’s sentence (per Texas law), but that didn’t matter…the “heartless Republican” narrative was too dear to the left to allow facts to get in the way. So, they raised up a death row inmate as an exemplar of what is wrong with the death penalty. The only trouble was that even if the man wasn’t guilty of the particular crime he was eventually executed for, he had done enough horrid things (rape, attempted murder, etc) to make one commentor coldly, but accurately, note that he could choke in hell on the irony of it all if he was, indeed, innocent of the murder.

In the unwillingness of most death penalty opponents to embrace the full Culture of Life is their fundamental weakness – but this weakness, in and of itself, would be surmountable if the anti-death penalty people would stop trying to generate sympathy for entirely unsympathetic people. If anyone really wants to seriously curtail and eventually end the application of the death penalty in the United States, the first step would be to reform our prisons to the point where life in prison really meant life in prison – and was under a rule of extraordinary strictness and austerity. The argument will always be lost as long as killers are portrayed as victims – portray them as they are, insist upon their punishment, and appeal to the sense of mercy of the American people – that would be the way to take a stand against the death penalty in the United States.

According to a new study, the Democrats are the real “party of the rich.”

Democrats like to define themselves as the party of poor and middle-income Americans, but a new study says they now represent the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional districts.

In a state-by-state, district-by-district comparison of wealth concentrations based on Internal Revenue Service income data, Michael Franc, vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation, found that the majority of the nation’s wealthiest congressional jurisdictions were represented by Democrats.

He also found that more than half of the wealthiest households were concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats hold both Senate seats.

There’s actually a lot of interesting information in the study, so read the rest of the story. I’m sure some liberals here will dismiss the study and its results because of who conducted it, but it seems to me that their methods are pretty straightforward.

The story also notes how the Democrats’ agenda is clearly being influenced by their rich constituents, as Michael France explained in this Heritage press release.

Anyway, I hope everyone, even those rich, rich Democrats, are enjoying Black Friday today.

An interesting revelation…

Democratic U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, who is running for his sixth term next year, didn’t own a home in Montana for 11 years of his 29-year Senate career.

State Republicans say Baucus has become a full-time Washington, D.C., politician who no longer really lives in Montana. They say the issue will come up in the upcoming campaign.

Baucus now owns one-half of his mother’s Helena home, and Baucus and his wife, Wanda, are listed on the home’s title as owners, records show.

Baucus spokesman Barrett Kaiser said the senator has always considered the house where he grew up “home” and returns at least twice a month.

“He’s called it home for as long as he can remember,” Kaiser said. “It’s the house where his son comes to visit his grandmother and it’s likely where Max’s grandchildren will come, too.”

Chris Wilcox, executive director of the Montana Republican Party, said it’s wonderful that Baucus comes back to Montana to visit his mother, but said it’s not the same thing as actually living here.

“The rest of our congressional delegation still keep their lives here, their families, their business operations” he said. “I think that’s an important difference.”

The issue of residency has certainly come up in the past and has been used by both Democrats and Republicans. When Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts, his Democrat opponents saw the threat he was and tried to claim he wasn’t a legitimate resident of Massachusetts, because he had been living temporarily in Utah while he was running the Olympics. Hillary Clinton chose an easily winnable state (New York) to move to in order to run for the Senate. After Tom DeLay retired from the House, Democrats sought (successfully) to keep him on the ballot in Texas despite the fact he had established residency in Virginia — never mind the fact he dropped out of the race.

How will this play out? Considering how rarely Democrats are held accountable for their corruption, I have little faith that a question of residency will actually do much harm to Baucus’s reelection efforts.

Looks like it may be time to submit an addendum to our original FEC complaint…