“The worse, the better,” Vladimir Lenin is said to have observed. What Lenin meant was that the worse social conditions became in Russia, the more likely he and the Bolsheviks could foment a communist revolution. President Barrack Obama’s White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently updated Lenin’s maxim, saying, “Never allow a crisis to go to waste.”Last Friday, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives took those maxims to heart when they pushed through their 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act by a vote 219 to 212. The bill is supposed to address the twin crises of economic recession and climate change by creating millions of new “green” jobs. Instead of an old-fashioned Soviet-style five-year plan, ACES can be thought of as 50-year plan to radically transform how Americans produce and use energy.

…Well, look, Ron Bailey, this entire administration seems to me to emulate the tactics of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, in all things, not just energy… and in my view we’ve not seen nearly the worst of it yet. (A Depressing thought as we come to July 4th, isn’t it?)

So why should Energy be any different?  Energy, after all, is the key to our country and it’s prosperity. Which of course was why I raised such holy hell when the first thing Obama did upon being sworn in was to reverse President Bush’s sign off on offshore drilling.  That action is the major reason oil prices have better than doubled in the last 6 months.

The question that Ron asks, though, seems to me pertinent:

Will Americans tolerate such sweeping interventions into their lives and workplaces?

…

The 1994 mid-term election became a referendum on big government and ushered in Republican control of both the Senate and House of Representatives for the first time since the early 1950s. Given the Republican Party’s current disarray, it’s unlikely that 2010 will see another “Republican Revolution.” However, as the new energy policies slow economic growth and impose vast new costs on consumers, it will be the Republicans who are quietly saying, “The worse, the better.”

I have to say I’m a little uncomfortable with this.

Oh, don’t misunderstand me…Ron’s’s quite right, far as he goes. In essence, he’s saying exactly what I’ve often said the last 10 years or so:

The best stump argument the Republicans have is Democrats with power.

Thing is, that doesn’t seem to me a strong enough argument for real change. Being the lesser of two evils doesn’t constitute much of an incentive for long term voter support for the right, which is what’s so desperately needed to reverse this socialistic course we’re on.  At best, if all we have is “We’re not Democrats” for a campaign mantra, we may win short term via the Democrat Over-reaching, but not long term… and even in the short term, support will at best be thin.

What’s needed is not Democrat Lite, but real conservatives. Republicans over the years are successful to the extent they’ve been conservative.  Where they get into trouble, and lose elections, it’s to the degree they’ve gone Democrat lite, and forgotten Reagan’s maxim that government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the Demcrats are not calculating with this factor in mind.  I observe, as I have previously,  that they seem to be focusing all their efforts at derision against the most conservative Republicans, not the so-called ‘moderates’. They know very well the threat a real conservative Republican party brings to the table.  Look at the amount of time and spittle being expended on the topic of Sarah Palin, as an example.  (How else to explain away the desperate and hateful focus on Trig Palin by a group of people… a party… a political way of thinking… that is ostensibly supposed to be fighting for the downtrodden, such as those with Downs syndrome?)

Look, too, at the amount of effort the left put into getting the conservatively weaker John McCain into the nomination, only to reject him once he got that nomination, in favor of the outright socialist.

Let me speak plainly to this point so there’s no mistaking me:

There is not a doubt in my mind that we will be seeing a major shift of power in two years. The polls tell the tale very clearly… the Democrat party are already over-reaching,  and given Democrat party super majorities in both houses, and thereby no checks on their collectivist asperations, the damage they will cause between now and then will be outright staggering.  Again, I fear we’ve not seen the worst of this. The voter reaction to that over reach… to that damage… is quite predictable;  There will be a massive swing away from the Democrats in 2010. They know this, which is why they’re so desperate to get as much leftist legislation in place now as they possibly can between now and then.

The question before us is, will the Republicans  be conservative enough to capitalize on that day and going forward, and reverse this tragic trend we’re on… or will they offer up Democrat lite which will,  in turn,be swept away by the next tide, scheduled to happen in 2012?

As I look at the current crop of Republicans and their leaders, I have to wonder.

Please… someone step up and tell me my fear here is unwarranted.

Cross-posted from Bitsblog.

Although I am disappointed that so many Representatives in Congress voted for this blatent tax, I’m not surprised.  I’m never surprised when the powerful in Washington find a new way to separate me from my money, regardless of the method or intermediaries.

There are those who believe that by taxing corporations or the rich, the impact on the rest of society is nil.  But it never is.  Although not always obvious, these taxes still get paid by you and me in the prices we pay for products and services.  Corporations do not absorb millions of dollars in taxation from a mysterious pool of unspent profit.  They factor those taxes into their revenue models to ensure they maintain the profit level expected by their owners (shareholders).  We all end up paying those taxes.

And in the case of taxing energy consumption, there is no motivation provided to improve the consumption model or method of generating energy… the price simply goes up.  The Heritage Foundation has provided an analysis of the impact of the bill on jobs and families, including estimates of gross state product losses, job losses and average family expense increases.  This is not good for America.

Now is the time to contact your Senator.  Updates to the bill should appear in the sidebar under “Cap And Trade Updates”.

Frustrating are the Republicans who support this bill. 

• Michael Castle, Delaware
• Mary Bono Mack, California
• Mark Kirk, Illinois
• Leonard Lance, New Jersey
• Frank LoBiondo, New Jersey
• John McHugh,  New York
• Dave Reichert, Washington
• Christopher  Smith, New Jersey

Also interesting are comments from Democrats who opposed this bill:

• John Dingell (D-MI): “Nobody in this country realizes that cap and trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one.” (Rep. John Dingell, Subcommittee On Energy And Environment, Energy And Commerce Committee, Hearing, 4/24/09)
• Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN): “And you also run the risk of taking jobs away and not actually solving global warming.” (MSNBC’s “Hardball,” 3/25/09)
• Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA): “I just don’t think an economy-wide cap and trade works.” (Gerard Shields, “La. Democrats key figures in federal emissions debate,” The Advocate, 5/2/09)
• Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA): “I believe this bill would create an undue burden on families who are already paying too much in energy bills…” (Gerard Shields, “La. Democrats key figures in federal emissions debate,” The Advocate, 5/2/09)
• Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA): “Any way you do it, it hurts Pennsylvania, especially western Pennsylvania. I think cap and trade is bad policy.” (Alex Isenstadt, “Cap and trade hits speed bumps,” Politico, 4/27/09)

Below is a video from the Republican National Committee that you also might find helpful.

Props to Bitsblog, IowaGOP, RNC, and various US Government online resources.

I’ve spent the past 36 hours dramatically changing my thoughts about how I might speak to the unusual story of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s mysterious disappearance.   Mark was the head of the Republican Governor’s Association (now headed by Haley Barbour), and considered a potential candidate for the 2012 Presidential nomination.

First I thought, after hearing that he had been missing for several days after driving off in a bodyguard’s SUV, that this guy was a little weird.  I could, at that point, conceive of only one type of circumstance that might explain this behavior, and that would be some kind of kidnapping or other threat by an outside party.  Barring such a circumstance, I figured running for President didn’t sound like something that could be on his calendar… disappearing on purpose and intentionally avoiding everyone with no explanation just didn’t sound like an event that would instill anyone’s confidence.  The good news, I thought, is that he certainly hadn’t disappeared because of an extramarital affair.  No one would draw this much attention just so they could spend time with an alternate squeeze.

Later on I heard he was hiking in the Appalachian Trail.  Clearing his head, evidently.  According to his staff, this was not unusual, so my thoughts about the man didn’t change much, just continuing to seem very odd and unlikely to be a kidnapping but rather just some eccentricity.  South Carolina officials were discussing passing on the powers of the office to the Lieutenant Governor Andrew Bauer.  His staff stated they could reach him is necessary.  Of course, the more this went on, the more convinced I was that running for President wasn’t going to work out.  But at least it can’t possibly be an affair.

Then this morning the news came out that the Governor had returned to South Carolina from… Argentina.

Oops.

That was enough, just the one name of a location other than the one that had been portrayed by the staff, that convinced me that we are suddenly going to find ourselves in the middle of yet another political catastrophe.

Sure enough, this afternoon came the news from a press conference that Sanford had been having an affair.  With a woman from Argentina.

I’m sad, really sad, that yet another American leader has been exposed as being unable to maintain the most important and personal commitment a human being can make: the commitment to give one’s entire remaining lifetime to another.  Anytime anyone breaks this promise, it saddens me.  The sadness is magnified when a leader, one whom people should be able to look to as an example of integrity.  By breaking faith with their wives they’ve also proven that they’re promises are meaningless.

The Left has been quick to harass both Sanford, as well as Senator John Ensign.  Their harassment is not, however, based on an outrage for their behavior.  No, it is simply because they had been such strong critics of President Clinton when he was fighting off the Monica Lewinsky issue.

This kind of reaction is very frustrating because while they are quite right that this kind of hypocrisy is outrageous, the hypocrisy only makes the original criticisms by Sanford and Ensign, of President Clinton, worthless.

The Left is lost because all they can do is sputter about how if Clinton is wrong, then Sanford, Ensign, Limbaugh, Gingrich and others are wrong as well.  But they say this in a rhetorical manner… they sputter because what they are really trying to say is that since there are Republicans who have failed their spouses, therefore Democrats who do the same are okay… what they do off the clock is okay.   The end result of the Left is to normalize this kind of behavior, while sounding pious.

But the disappointment comes from two things:

1. Sanford’s decision to stay in office
2. The continued support of Sanford

I don’t know how anyone can take the time and trouble to tell the world how badly they have failed in keeping the promise of their marriage and then turn and ask the world to not only forgive them but continue to trust them.  It should always be the simplest decision to end the farce and leave.  Even though he resigned as Chairman of the Republican Governors Association, Sanford should also resign as Governor of South Carolina, and do it now.

But Sanford can and will continue on in office because of the continued support of various “leaders” in the Conservative Movement, and ultimately the people of South Carolina.   Conservatives and Republicans together should stand up for Integrity, for Marriage, for appropriate Trust.  Demand he resign, as I do now.

Sanford asked for forgiveness, and although perhaps not explicitely, asked for forgetfulness.  Mark, I have no problem forgiving you.  But I wouldn’t trust you any further than your wife will.  For the sake of South Carolinians, Republicans and Conservatives who want to desparately move critical national agendas forward, resign.  Let it go.

It is interesting to note that while many in the US are advocating an overthrow of the current clerically over-ruled government system in Iran, reports seem to indicate that Iranians as a whole are perhaps not interested in an outright change in the system, just fairness in this election.

Iran’s history, especially with the United States, demands care in how our leaders address the situation.  More on that later.

Political ambitions  in the Islamic Kingdom aside, we here at TCR support Liberty whereever she is needed, and support the call for open and fair elections in Iran.  To the Iranians leadship we say, make it right!

Even from the outset, my instinct was that the reaction to the Tiller story was overblown… intentionally so.  Whatever else might be said, we’re talking about one man’s death. Absent the issue of Abortion, and in light of the seven men in Chicago alone, shot in the same 24 hour period, one man being shot just isn’t national news, sorry.   It also and most certainly doesn’t rise to the level of ‘terrorism’ as some have been loudly claiming.

It’s interesting, too, how the word “‘Terrorism” has been rediscovered by the left, to be applied to this thing, isn’t it?   Let’s examine this, for a moment:

Since back in 1993, there have been seven abortion clinic workers killed as such. If this constitutes an organized bit of terrorist activity, I suggest it to be so far below the radar as to be invisible. This is a misapplication of the term terrorism, in light of the much larger terrorism we’ve seen in the last decade… terrorism that for the most part, the left ignored.  They also ignore that the killing of Tiller has been condemned by every mainstream pro-life group. Their entire response seems out of the bounds of reason.

So unreasonably loud is the howl over this one in fact, that one cannot help but wonder if it wasn’t orchestrated so. If we take what we see on the web as indicative, for the most part these are leftists…. who are people already used to making noise far in excess of their actual numbers.  I think we can take this level of noise as an indication of the number of organized mouthpieces on the web right now. (And I think that has implications for our political future.)

There are a goodly number of left-of-center bloggers that have blamed Bill O’Reilly and other more-or-less mainstream conservative commentators for creating the tension that made murdering Tiller more likely. I reject that argument on its face.  Unless of course we’re going to see admissions on the part of pro-abortion types that their rhetoric is directly responsible for an environment conducive to the attacks on those who, while non-violent, oppose abortion.

Or, we’ll see them admit that anti-military protests from the left has generated an environment where recruiters are far more likely to get shot at, as we saw yesterday. That happening, and the reaction from the left on that score… or more correctly, the lack of it, is instructive.  The leftie blogs who were all over the Tiller shooting, using all kinds of overheated rhetoric to make their case, were all but silent, as the news broke from Little Rock, yesterday afternoon.  Clearly, someone in uniform is of less import to these than is one late-term abortionist. Consider that for just a moment. Let it roll around in your head for a bit.

At the bottom line, then, this noise from the left is an attempt at martyrdom for Tiller, so as to impose a particular point of view.   What we also have is a group of people who in the words of Rahm Emanuel, don’t waste any ‘crisis’ toward that end.  Tiller’s family is still making funeral arrangements. That  fact, however doesn’t slow down those seeking political points on Tiller’s body before it’s cold, though. Gotta use the crisis for the political aims of the left. And so, they are.

Regardless of your views on abortion, that much must be acknowledged.

Start adding the actual issues directly surrounding abortion to that discussion, however, and the situation makes a rather foundational change.  There seems to me an internal conflict inherent in arguing, as the noisemakers have been doing on this,  that Tiller as a victim was wronged, and that his death was wrong, but that Tiller’s victims… those aborted… were not wronged. Is either, less dead?

That logical conflict seems to me indicative of a movement more dedicated to imposing views, than changing minds.  The resistance to the government just now in terms of tea parties and whatnot seems suggestive to me of how much of a success impositions have been having of late.  That position is a sure-fire turn off to anyone not pro-abortion, and I suspect a goodly number of those who ARE pro-abortion.

Then again, all this noise was never about discussion, was it? See, here’s the thing; If Tiller’s murder is the result of overheated rhetoric, what does anyone suppose the kind of overheated rhetoric we’ve seen in response to it, will bring?

I’m sure there are those who will suggest I’m trying to paint the murder of George Tiller as no big deal.  It’s not true, of course, but we’ll see such charges, as surely a the sun will rise tomorrow. (I’ve checked the weather report… we can be reasonably assured the sun will in fact rise. )  I’ve been writing political commentary since Jimmy Carter was in office, in various forms, and based on that experience, this kind of attack is eminently predictable, particularly when they run out of logical defenses.

To people making such charges, I will point out that there is a very thick line between saying an event is no big deal, and saying that certain political factions have overblown the event for their own political ends.

The difference in the reaction to the Murder of Abortionist George Tiller vs the murder of Pvt William Long, are the clue to that fact. Clearly, one must be in the political favor of the left to garner their concern when they get murdered, and Pvt Long being military… and the left being anti-military and pro-abortion as a rule, Pvt Long’s murder doesn’t merit the leftist outrage that George Tiller’s murder does.

[6/3/09 Updated to fix some html issues - Ed.]

Goodbye capitalism.  At least for GM.  And anyone that still owns a Chevy, Caddy, or some other GM vehicle. 

On the positive side, the government can now start cranking out as many Cadillac limos as it does $100 bills to support the government’s activities.

On the negative side, the government can now start cranking out as many Cadillac limos as it does $100 bills to support the government’s activities.

The Press, those ready to speak the Truth, have finally seen the direction the government is going for what it is. 

Okay, only one member of the Press. 

Okay, it’s the Russian Press.

That’s right, Pravda, the state sponsored news agency, provided an incredibly insightful assessment of our nation’s state of affairs.  Well, that is, they reprinted a Russian blogger’s (Stanislav Mishin) piece, but clearly as a position they support.  Mishin provides a very reflective, historical, and compelling case for the US Government to stop and look at what we’ve become.  It seems ironic that the Russians would criticize us for moving too close to Communism.

At the end of the article, the author recommends that Russian owned companies in the US get themselves out of our mess while the getting is good.  If only the rest of us could exercise such an option easily.

A friend said to me today that we’re like the Frog in the Kettle.  Agreed.  And a fast boil at that.

Something there is about humans that causes us not to want to be indebted to anyone. It’s perhaps why some are so anti-military. Yet we are indebted to these individuals, and millions more like them, buried on battlefields all around the world. We are indebted in a way that is wholly unique. This is not just about that they died. It’s what they died for, and whom.

It’s been a long time since most of them were among us. Yet even in the relative safety of the time that is passed between their life and death, and now , you can still feel it…. Our debt to these people.

I’ve said this many times before, in these spaces, and the import of it does not diminish in the telling; These people’s lives, and their sacrifices, should still count for something to us. Every single one of them that died at Normandy at Pearl, at Gettysburg, and any one of the thousands of places where are people in uniform have fought and died, and are buried, every one of those individuals should hold special meaning for us .

It’s easier to do, perhaps when you consider that they had their lives just as we have ours. These people loved, they laughed, they cried. They had a favorite food, a favorite color, a particular bit of music, or of poetry stirred their souls, like none other, just like we, ourselves. Every bit as much as you and I love our lives, they loved theirs. Their lives were as precious to them, as yours is to you. Their loss was as keenly felt by their loved ones as yours would yours. And yet, they gave their lives up, for something bigger.

I’m willing to bet that you have friends and loved ones that you would be willing to sacrifice for.

Well, now think; How much more noble is a sacrifice of one’s life for people that one will never meet? Well, the people we honor today, those in uniform particularly, but some who were not, gave of themselves for the benefit of people they would never know…. you and I, and countless others from many nations. If not for their sacrifices, you’d have very different lives, indeed. Lives not nearly as good.

Look upon those actions, those sacrifices, and know what you’re seeing is strength, courage, and nobility in measures that should not… can not, be ignored. Such sacrifice must be honored by us all; it was made, after all for our benefit.

Think about that as we deal with the solemn proceedings for their day.

(cross posted from BitsBlog)

A

There is a major cultural schism developing in America. But it’s not over abortion, same-sex marriage or home schooling, as important as these issues are. The new divide centers on free enterprise — the principle at the core of American culture.

I dare suggest Brooks in this quote, has this exactly backward.  He’s pointing at a symptom and labeling at the root cause. Not that I blame him, really.  It’s been so long since we’ve dealt with things on the level of principle that even the more learned among us get it garbled in translation.

I agree with Arthur that this is a war that is cultural in its nature. However, the war over capitalism, as he calls it, is part of the war on culture because capitalism in its truest sense can only exist in a free society, which is a culturally generated condition.  It is the product of a particular variety of culture that…  (at least until recently)…  we here in these United States have been blessed with. What I am suggesting is that the principle at the core of the American culture is in fact freedom, of which capitalism is a product.

While it is true that there are a few places in the communist world, China for example, where capitalism raises its head in some form, it is diluted in the extreme. It is in fact, capitalism in name only.  Alas in the view of many, a goodly number of which were out on the front lines of the tea party protests last month, that kind of weak as dishwater capitalism, capitalism in name only, is the path that we have been set on long ago, and have taken several leaps toward in the recent dealings between the White House the united auto workers unions had left of the American car manufacturing companies, and the banking industry.

Freedom, in the end, is an issue of morals, the proper application of morals. It is purely a morality issue. So it is, that very few people were surprised when the current administration left an over- large the bill for our offspring to pay for bailing out the aforementioned united auto workers union, and for whatever else the government decided they were going to use it for in the name of “recovery”. There’s an immorality at the center of the current administrations actions that cannot be ignored.

In the end, that morality issue is what the Tea Parties were all about. being populated,  by and large people who haven’t walked away from their mortgages who don’t want the government largess and who certainly aren’t interested in the government taking their pockets to pay for people who did walk away from their mortgages who do want government largess and don’t care about much else.  You see…. Theft, of whatever kind, is also a morality issue.

I must be fair….Brooks gets it partially right, here, when he says:

Social Democrats are working to create a society where the majority are net recipients of the “sharing economy.” They are fighting a culture war of attrition with economic tools. Defenders of capitalism risk getting caught flat-footed with increasingly antiquated arguments that free enterprise is a Main Street pocketbook issue. Progressives are working relentlessly to see that it is not.

Advocates of free enterprise must learn from the growing grass-roots protests, and make the moral case for freedom and entrepreneurship.

Well, I’ll give him 7 points  out of ten; he’s getting close to the principles of the thing, but he’s not quite there yet.

Entrepreneurship is a product of capitalism, and cannot exist outside that environment.  Capitalism in it’s turn, is a product of freedom. Similarly, capitalism cannot exist outside an environment of freedom, which is in turn a product of morality.

In the end, what the protesters on April 15 were arguing for was that the government start acting morally.  It’s something that they haven’t done for quite some time.  Of course, there are those who will argue that moral judgments in the political world amount to a litmus test.  They are quite correct, of course it does.  But since when is that a bad thing?  Let me tell you, my friends, when you hear somebody dismissing something as a litmus test what you are really hearing is someone arguing that principles should not be applied.  There lies a snake.

It is clear that the Democrat party are never going to return to that level of morality, will never understand the relationship of morality freedom and capitalism , and wouldn’t admit it if they did.  It is then left to the Republican Party to make those connections and to trumpet their virtues.  The Republicans for their part are only going to be returning to power to the direct degree that they understand those relationships, and championed the principles behind them.

Addendum: (David L)

Who better to explain markets and freedom than Milton Frindman.   Capitalism isn’t a system.   Rather a free market economy is simply what free people do.   This video is not exactly on point, but ot is hard to wrong with Friedman.   The last half of the video is Mark Levin rant, video:

Friedman understands the  market economy, and Levin understands Obama.

Cross-posted from BitsBlog.

There are many, including the Washington Post… hardly a bastion of liberal thought… who have counseled Obama to look for judicial restraint:

Alas, the once-dominant species of liberal proponents of judicial restraint has relatively few surviving members. Obama should find them - why not Jose Cabranes, the excellent judge whom President Clinton appointed to the 2nd Circuit? - and help revive the species.

It appears that Obama will be moving in the opposite direction, making that restraint even more of a rarity. Comments made while  Obama was still just a candidate, as early as 2001, in an WBEZ interview, are exemplary:

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.

Well, anyone who thinks the Warren court wasn’t radical, as Obama apparently does, has no sense of American history, first of all, and certainly no idea what the court is supposed to be doing.  It seems reasonably safe to assume that any nominee Obama comes up with now is going to be ‘restraint challenged’ the way a hungry Black Labrador puppy would be inside a 25 bag of Kibble.

It is troublesome that Obama still pursues the socialistic goal of the redistribution of wealth. That is particularly troublesome in a recession, when demonstrably, forced wealth redistribution is counter productive to overall economic recovery.

There are other markers of Obama’s train of thought that are equally disturbing, and are of a piece with his redistributionist efforts:

“…we need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”

Notice, please, that Obama has said nothing whatever about the Constitution, here.  Isn’t upholding the Constitution as such the first duty of a jurist? For that matter, doesn’t the President swear also, to uphold the Constitution? Where then, in the Constitution is the redistribution of wealth stated as a power, or a responsibility of government?

As Doctor Charles Krauthammer said the other night on the “Special Report” panel:

But I thought what Obama said today was really remarkable when he said I want someone on the court who understands that justice isn’t about abstract legal theory. It’s about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives.

Now that is not only wrong, it’s deeply corrupting. The idea that you ought to be thinking about how the law affects the reality of someone’s life is something that you do when you are passing a law or create a law. That’s what you do if you are a member of Congress who represents people and their needs.

But once the law is passed, the only job a judge has is to interpret the law without consideration of a person’s standing in life. Otherwise you could never have, say, a bank foreclosing on a home, because who, after all, is more affected, a bank that might lose a few dollars, or a family that’s going to lose its home and future livelihood, et cetera?

The whole idea blinds a justice and the statutes that we have outside our courthouses of a blindfold over justice is that you do not look at a person’s station in life, their needs in life, requirements in life. It’s entirely about the law.

Exactly so.

What the Doctor misses, of course is the leftist view that the Surpeme Court is the legislature of last resort… and that the Warren Court only partially filled that role to Obama’s satisfaction speaks volumes to the problems freedom loving Americans now face.

The bottom line here is that Obama can, and likely will, nominate someone so far out of the mainstream, that it will end up making Lani Guinier look like a reasonable choice.

Consider, also, the emphasis Obama is placing on getting another woman on the court.  This is not an Guinier -like attempt to get particular Democrat sub-group represented.  The simple fact is that statistically, females live longer. Thereby, Obama is trying to extend the redistributionist hold on our government, further into the future, and nobody can stop him from doing so… and a far left-Senate seems unlikely to appreciably restrict him.

Crossposted from BitsBlog.

Arlen Specter belongs to a type familiar to Congress: the time-serving hack devoid of any principle save arrogance. He has spent three decades in the Senate but is associated with no great cause, no prescient warning, no landmark legislation. Yet he imagines that the Senate needs his wisdom and judgment for a sixth term. He joined the Republican party out of expediency in the 1960s, and leaves it out of expediency this week.

Indeed. At the end of the day,what we have here is the second in a line of what will be many ‘victims’ of what are now being called the Tea Party protests. The first, I think, was John McCain.

Now, you’re going to be hearing, over the next weeks and months between now and the mid-term elections, how the supposed GOP swing to the extreme right has cost the Republicans the 2008 election. These charges have come from such as Lindsay Graham and Ramesh Ponnuru, among others, and of course from staunch Democrats, who it would appear are simply pulling themselves up on any available handhold.    Specter, in particular blames that factor on his leaving the party.  But it’s not so. In truth, the movement of the party for the time that Specter has been in office, has been to the left… The exception… Reagan.. being their wildest success. That leftward march since Reagan has damaged the party, and the country and culminated in the GOP losses in 2008. The Tea Parties have been a reaction to that starboard movement, and one over-long in coming. The shut-out of Specter is merely one step on the path back to GOP principles… and in my view, an encouraging one, as I mentioned in my recent Pajamas Media article.

But for all his protests about how the party left him… thus invoking Reagan, interestingly, who used that line to explain why he abandoned the Democrats in the 60’s to follow the call of the then-conservative Goldwater… the fact is that even moderates have been deserting Specter for quite a while, now. The most recent one I’ve seen suggests that Specter was only leading among Republican moderates by around 8 points. 

The fact is, that the party that has been narrowing, these last few years, and particularly the last couple of years, is the Democrat party. As Jennifer Rubin points up yesterday,  at Pajamas Media:

With market capitalism under assault and polling showing voters quite concerned about spending, debt, and bailouts, you’d think Republicans could find a message which resonates with a wide audience.

And so they have. Thing is, the Republican rank and file recognizes in a way the party leadership is only starting to understand that the first task is to eliminate those who don’t share those concerns. And Specter, I’m afraid is one such. (I’ll take up my differences with Jennifer’s conclusions in another article) 

So, Specter, instead of fighting for the principles he claimed to believe in, jumps ship when he sees his political future coming to a sticky end, and now argues against those principles. Apparently, other than his own political future, Specter HAS no principles. As NR puts it:

We are not sure why self-respecting liberals would vote to have Specter as their representative. Most Democrats believe the country is with them and Pennsylvania even more so; why not have a true believer in the seat?

That’s exactly the issue that we’re going to see played out in PA, over the next several months.  Already, he’s got two running against him in the primary, who have more popular support.  

Now, lest anyone think that because the state is heavily Dem, Toomey, Specter’s Republican challenger, has no chance at Beating Specter, I’ll point out that Toomey has repeatedly won in heavily Democrat Beaver County, and by a wider margin than Specter ever did.

There is, however, another layer to all of this: The large number of Democrats who are none too happy with where their party, and thereby their country, is headed, either. By a number of reports I’ve seen some 20-25% of the people in those tea party protests were Democrats. I suspect that there are many Dems who will see Specter as part of the problem.

As the NR points out what the Democrats are taking on, here is a loose cannon.

Reporters are lazily saying that the Democrats will now have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but in truth whether that majority holds will depend on the issue.

… and of course where Specter comes down on that particular issue. More particularly, if it’s in Specter’s short-term political interest to vote with his new party. A Veto-proof majority requires someone who will vote in block, and Specter has a history doing exactly the opposite if it suits his own political fortunes… which are in the end, his only concern. No worries for the people, no association to anything resembling principle will be brooked in his personal deliberation on votes before him. That aspect of Specter’s history is fairly well known, very well-noted in his voting record, and is brought into even starker contrast by this move yesterday.

For all Specter’s statements of loyalty to his new party and their agenda, Democrat voters will always recall, particularly come voting time, that he told the Republicans the same thing, in April of 2009.

Cross-posted from BitsBlog.