Over to you, Senator Lautenberg. Make Rahm proud.

One of the Senate’s most outspoken advocates of tighter gun restrictions said he plans to introduce language banning the type of supplemented gun clips that the shooter in Arizona used on Saturday.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) promised to bring back legislation that had expired in 2004 that would prohibit the use of magazines of 10 rounds or more, according to The Associated Press.

Confederate Yankee explores the nuance of “bringing back” this legislation. Go to his main page and keep scrolling to behold just how wrong or dishonest the media and gun-control advocates have been in recent days.

What I find interesting about Lautenberg’s action is how wonderfully hypocritical it is. You see, there was a time, in the not-too-distant past, when merely hinting at a national tragedy in an advertisement was enough to inspire outrageous outrage.

Once again, over to you Senator Lautenberg:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a letter sent today, United States Senator Frank R. Lautenberg called on President Bush to immediately pull campaign ads that use tragic images from 9-11. Lautenberg called the ads demeaning and told the President they dishonored those that died as well as the loved ones they left behind.

“I urge you to direct your campaign to immediately withdraw these advertisements. I believe that all of us who run for elective office must maintain standards of dignity and respect that prevent us from exploiting national tragedies for political purposes,” wrote Lautenberg in his letter to President Bush.

Such is the ‘logic’ of opportunists: Using mere seconds of 9/11 imagery in a political advertisement dishonors the victims. Using the deaths of American citizens to set arbitrary limits on a recently incorporated civil right? It’s for the good of the country. Some tragedies, it seems, must be exploited for the sake of progress.

Given the Republican majority in the House and the conservative Democrats who want to keep their jobs in the Senate, Lautenberg has to know his bill will go nowhere, so this is nothing more than political grandstanding.

Or is it?

Exit quote: “In the wake of these kind of incidents, the trick is to move quickly…”

Like many mothers, Monet Parham wants to feed her daughter one thing, but the girl often wants to eat something else.

It’s the unhappy battle over the Happy Meal and Parham, mother of two and a health educator, said it’s a fight she just can’t win.

“I can tell them ‘No’ all day long, but then they see commercials that convince them you’ve really got to have this,” Parham said. Her 6-year-old daughter Maya especially likes the toys that come with McDonald’s Happy Meals. With a smile, the first grader says opening a Happy Meal is like “a birthday present.”

So now Parham plans to join the Center for Science in the Public Interest in filing a lawsuit today against the fast food giant to force them to either offer lower-calorie meals or get rid of the enticing trinkets.

Alternate headline for this story? “Parent surrenders in Battle of Wills.”

As some readers may know, I’m the parent of two toddlers. I love my girls, cannot imagine life without them and I never regret the decision to become a parent. However, like any parent, I am sometimes faced with a simple and uncomfortable truth: when toddlers want something, they can be really annoying and their persistence is almost limitless. A toddler who craves is a wily and patient creature who is always on the lookout for weak spots. Theirs is a strategy of attrition, and it’s often very difficult to endure without weakening.

Difficult, however, does not equal impossible.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not a perfect parent who is always able to bear up under the pressure. I am particularly vulnerable to the pout. We try not to show them too much television, but when I’m tired and just want a moment to rest, I sometimes fall prey to the temptation to fire up the DVR and give them an extra episode of “The Wonder Pets.” Although both my wife and I like to cook, sometimes we just don’t feel like it and at those times a hamburger and fries hits the spot. My girls are no strangers to the Happy Meal, and they like the toys. Like any toddlers, they are sometimes most persistent with their requests.

At the end of the day, though, I am the parent and even if it makes me the most unpopular person in the house, I have a defense against the toddler war of attrition. It is hard, but often necessary, to drop the nuclear bomb of parental weapons.

“No.”

I am not going to pretend this is a simple weapon to deploy. As any parent will tell you, it is sometimes very difficult to deny an unhappy child what they want to have. One of my greatest joys as a parent is watching my children enjoy something – a visit to the playground, a book they love, a television show that makes them laugh, or a meal and toy that will bring them delight. Saying “yes” would make everyone happy, but it is not always the right thing to do.

It is not my intention to be overly hard on Parham. Parenthood is not easy, and I do not judge the decisions she has made as a parent. What I do take issue with is her prejudgment of my parental abilities, and the steps she’s taking to deny me the ability to give my child the simple, rare, pleasure of a Happy Meal. This lawsuit assumes all of us with children are as weak as the parents who have joined the CSPI in suing McDonald’s. That assumption is as offensive as it is patronizing.

Of all of her statements, though, I find this the most distasteful.

“I object to the fact that McDonald’s is getting into my kids’ heads without my permission and actually changing what my kids want to eat,” Parham said in a CSPI statement announcing the lawsuit.

With all due respect, Ms. Parham, what goes into the head of your children is as much in your control as what goes into their stomachs. What your kids want to eat is completely separate from what you allow them to eat.

As I said before, I do not presume to be a perfect parent. Unlike Ms. Parham and the CSPI, though, I am not willing to allow the government to dictate what my children are allowed to eat due to my inability to say no when they want a Happy Meal.

The academic had not seen his party hold the White House since the 1860s. Since the end of the Civil War, the Democrats had been in the political wilderness. Wilson was a Ph.D. candidate in history and political science, so he decided to do some soul searching to discover why the Democratic party had lost the support of the American people. The results of his research?

The Democrats weren’t wrong…the government was just broken..

We are the first Americans to hear our own countrymen ask whether the Constitution is still adapted to serve the purposes for which it was intended; the first to entertain any serious doubts about the superiority of our own institutions as compared with the systems of Europe; the first to think of remodeling the administrative machinery of the federal government, and of forcing new forms of responsibility upon Congress.

This is a familiar refrain, often sung by the Democrats: our policies aren’t the problem – those who wrote the founding documents of this country created a system that is just too darn hard for a president or Congress to negotiate. So, so unfair.

Then Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected president, and suddenly…Wilson regained his faith in the American system. America was governable again! Sixteen years later, Wilson was elected president and promptly forgot every political theory he once espoused. Out? Cynicism about the government. In? Fascism progressive government.

It was April 1980, and Lloyd Cutler was depressed.

The counsel to President Jimmy Carter had watched Congress and the American people turn on the president he served. Like Wilson, he decided to do some soul searching to discover why the Democratic party had lost support. The results of his research?

Once again…

A particular shortcoming in need of a remedy is the structural inability of our government to propose, legislate, and administer a balanced program for governing. In parliamentary terms one might say under the U.S. Constitution it is not now feasible to ‘form a government.’ The separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches, whatever its merits and 1793, has become a structure that almost guarantees stalemate today. As we wonder why we are having such a difficult time making decisions we all know must be made and projecting our power and leadership, we should reflect on whether this is one big reason.

Shockingly, Cutler lost his cynicism by 1994, when he served as counsel to President Bill Clinton.

It is 2010, and here we are again.

A young Democrat president who ran on a platform of hope and change just had his domestic policies repudiated by the American people in a midterm election. His recent diplomatic efforts have not been successful. Once again, the opportunity to do some soul searching and discover why the Democrats have lost favor with the American people presents itself. A national political reporter researches the issue. His conclusion?

The issue is not President Obama. The presidency is just too darned hard.

Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency? Obama has looked to many models of leadership, including FDR and Abraham Lincoln, two transformative presidents who governed during times of upheaval. But what’s lost in those historical comparisons is that both men ran slim bureaucracies rooted in relative simplicity. Neither had secretaries of education, transportation, health and human services, veterans’ affairs, energy, or homeland security, nor czars for pollution or drug abuse, nor televisions in the West Wing constantly tuned to yammering pundits. They had bigger issues to grapple with, but far less managing to do. “Lincoln had time to think,” says Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University. “That kind of downtime just doesn’t exist anymore.”

So the issue is that Obama doesn’t have any downtime?

News to me.

This is an unfortunate pattern for the Democrat party. They have repeatedly refused to engage in any meaningful self-reflection in defeat. Their losses are far too often blamed on anything other than their own failure to govern in a way that reflects the will of the American people. When their policies are rejected by voters, the country suddenly becomes ‘ungovernable’ or the presidency becomes too much for one person to accomplish. To the latter argument, I offer a simple rebuttal:

Ronald Reagan somehow found the time to run the country and deal with the Soviet threat, and survived an assassination attempt. His was not an easy presidency, but it was, overall, a successful one. When Reagan was in office, the president never asked whether the job was too hard, or whether the country had become ungovernable. They didn’t have to.

The presidency is a difficult job and this country demands quite a bit from its presidents. Perhaps it is time for the Democrats to demand more from their candidates.

That image is from the Bangor Daily News website, which has posted the full results from Tuesday’s election. Scrolling down, one gets an idea of the extent of the carnage inflicted upon the Maine Democrats last Tuesday. Before the election, there were 20 Democrats and 15 Republicans in the Maine Senate. When the Senate reconvenes in January, there will be 20 Republicans, 14 Democrats and one independent. In the House, the pre-election spread was 95 Democrats, 55 Republicans and 1 independent. Post-election, it’s 77 Republicans, 73 Democrats and 1 independent. This is the first time the GOP has controlled all three branches of government since 1966.

Before the election, Republican Paul LePage was heavily favored to win the Blaine House in various polls but early in the night, it wasn’t looking good for him. The first results of the night were from the biggest cities in southern Maine and they showed a troubling trend – the Democrats were throwing their candidate under the bus and voting for independent Eliot Cutler.

At one point, Cutler had 49% of the counted vote. On various social media sites, the Cutler supporters and the Democrats were ecstatic and celebrating what looked like a sure upset by the independent.

Then…gloriously…the rural vote started to come in.

Cutler continued to gain votes, but LePage started racking them up faster. In some rural communities, he was getting twice as many votes as his opponents. In the early morning hours, he took a small lead and from that point on, he never looked back. By the next morning, he was up 7,500 votes and by noon the next day, was up just over 10,000. Democrat Libby Mitchell had conceded the night before and once Cutler realized rural Maine was voting against him, saw the writing on the wall and did the same, in a gracious, and emotional, speech.

A quick aside: if the election had been held one week later, Eliot Cutler would now be Maine’s governor-elect, which speaks volumes about the weakness of the Democrat candidate in the race.

This is a pretty stunning turn of events. The Democrat candidate for governor failed to gain a plurality in any of the state’s 16 counties, and her party lost control of both chambers of the legislature in one night. Thanks to how Maine’s Constitution is written, the GOP-controlled legislature now gets to elect the Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and State Auditor.

Governing this state will not be easy. We’re in a pretty deep fiscal hole, and the state was recently listed last on Forbes’ list of best states for business. I believe, though, that the state’s new leadership is up to the task of bringing business back to Maine. I look forward to the next four years.

In the end, I offer a simple but sincere congratulations to Governor-elect LePage, who was once a homeless 11-year-old living on the streets of Lewiston and is now the chief executive of the state.

An amazing, and uniquely American, story.

Republican leaders and their claque are promoting the idea that letting the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich expire would amount to a tax increase. The conservative lobbying organization Americans for Tax Reform says it would be “the largest tax hike in history.” Of course, that’s just standard talk for the ATR, which says it “opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle.” But many other Americans seem to have bought into that idea and the accompanying trickledown theory.

Lest anyone fall for this political explanation of what should happen to President George W. Bush’s gift to the millionaires and billionaires, here is the truth of the matter: Allowing the massive cuts to expire would not increase taxes, but rather it would simply undo an unwise and unfortunate tax reduction and let the tax level revert to that of the low-deficit Clinton years. Remember that as a time of budget surplus, not deficits.

Get that?

Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would “not increase taxes.” It would just “undo” a “tax reduction,” leading to a situation in which the government takes so much of our money that they will have surpluses. So take that, wingnuts! The government wouldn’t increase taxes, they’ll just let the tax rate “revert” to a time when they took more money out of our paychecks! That is different from a tax increase because they say it is!

The editorial then devolves further from there, recycling the class-warfare pablum about how only the super-mega-rich will be affected by the elimination of the tax cuts. The rest of us?

We’ll be fine. Just fine.

What really makes this editorial sad is that our founders enshrined journalism as a civil right because they knew a strong and independent press was essential to a healthy democracy. They believed politicians must be held accountable by those who purchase ink by the barrel.

Those who write editorials like this have no idea how badly they debase a profession our founders held in such esteem. They have become more invested in protecting an ideology than pursuing the ideal that the founders intended for their field.

And the worst part? They’re doing so willingly. Consider this: journalists in Soviet Russia had to be coerced into protecting the regime.

Ours volunteer for the duty.

Cross-posted at slublog.com

Judging from the trend line of these polls, conservative Republican Paul LePage is going to be Maine’s next governor. Only one thing to say, really.

Thank you, Mr. President.

That is not entirely fair, of course. Maine Democrats have done enough on their own to deserve replacement. But the last time the Maine electorate got tired of the status quo, they elected an independent. The independent in this race, Eliot Cutler, peaked at 16% in August and now hovers between 11 and 14 percent. What’s fascinating about LePage is that his lead keeps growing, no matter what the media and Democrats throw at him.

One reason for this is that LePage is a likable candidate. He’s a happy warrior who promises voters lower state spending, no tax hikes and welfare reform. In addition, LePage is an accomplished person with a near-Dickensian life story – he was homeless at age 11 and spent two years supporting himself shining shoes. He worked his way through high school, college, and graduate school and became a successful businessman. As if that weren’t enough, LePage also managed to get himself elected Mayor in a highly-Democratic city. He’s an impressive guy.

Still, that’s not really enough to explain the high poll numbers he’s been getting. That’s where the president comes in.

Maine is ranked 36th in median household income, but 13th in the per capita tax rate. On average, Mainers give $2,432 to the state government alone every year (as of 2005 – it’s more now). Add in federal taxes and you can see why so many voters in this state were impressed by Obama’s promise of a “net spending cut.”

That…didn’t exactly work out as promised.

I’ve lived in this state for just over two decades, and I’ve never seen voters this angry – not even in 1994. I think the reason LePage is likely to be Maine’s next governor is that voters believe his policies will lead to the spending cuts – at least on the state level – that Obama promised during the campaign. It’s pretty clear to me that voters in other states are thinking along the same lines.

Call it the “Obama effect.”

Change.

Update – Patrick Ishmael points out that both Maine House seats have been downgraded in recent weeks. Both have moved from ‘Safe Dem’ to ‘Leans Dem.’ Both seats are still slight longshots, but in 1994, so was James B. Longley, Jr. If I had to guess, I’d say the first congressional district will probably still go to the Democrats this year, but the second? Let’s just say that central, northern, and western Maine are a bit more conservative than north Boston southern Maine.

Representative Jason Levesque? Possible.

When George W. Bush was president, journalists and the left had two templates for Bush-faith stories. The first cast his faith in a dark light, with suspicion and conspiratorial thinking. Bush’s faith, they said, clouded his thinking on vital issues, and his judgment was called into question. The ultimate message of this template was simple: can we really trust a guy who believes that he’s doing God’s will?

”Just in the past few months,” Bartlett said, ”I think a light has gone off for people who’ve spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he’s always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.” Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush’s governance, went on to say: ”This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can’t be persuaded, that they’re extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he’s just like them. . . .

”This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,” Bartlett went on to say. ”He truly believes he’s on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.” Bartlett paused, then said, ”But you can’t run the world on faith.”

The horror…a president who believed in a higher authority and actually looked to his faith for…guidance. In retrospect, it’s pretty amazing that the republic actually survived under the rule of such a despotic, Christianist ruler, isn’t it?

The second template was almost exactly the opposite. Reporters and the people they quoted were asking themselves a different question…can the warmongering George W. Bush really be a Christian?

“That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge,” Suskind wrote. In other words, the devil, as it were, is lurking among the articles of faith, but not in the heart of the man.

This is a huge mistake, because when judged by his deeds, an entirely different picture emerges: Bush does not demonstrate a life of faith by his actions, and neither Methodists, evangelicals, nor fundamentalists can rightly call him brother. In fact, the available evidence raises serious questions about whether Bush is really a Christian at all.

This article was written in October of 2004, just before the election. In what is most certainly just a crazy random happenstance, writers at the Washington Post were asking themselves the same questions just a month earlier.

Weird, huh?

But despite the centrality of Bush’s faith to his presidency, he has revealed only the barest outline of his beliefs, leaving others to sift through the clues and make assumptions about where he stands.

Bush has said many times that he is a Christian, believes in the power of prayer and considers himself a “lowly sinner.” But White House aides said they do not know whether the president believes that: the Bible is without error; the theory of evolution is true; homosexuality is a sinful choice; only Christians will go to heaven; support for Israel is a biblical imperative; or the war in Iraq is part of God’s plan.

Well isn’t that interesting? When Bush declared his Christianity, the press felt a need to delve into his faith and explore the nuances of his belief. Was Bush a moderate Christian, or was he really just one of those crazy wingnut believers who use words like sin and redemption and stuff? Heck, those people are practically snake-handlers, right? But the real question was whether he was a real Christian at all.

So many questions to be explored. And explore them, the press did.

Then, I mean.

I have no idea what Barack Obama believes about God, and I really don’t care. Who he prays to is less important to me than the fact that he’s expanding government power and turning the United States into a debtocracy. The deficits his administration have created threaten not just my economic well-being, but that of my children and quite possibly their children. To me, Obama’s policies are more important than his faith.

The media seem to feel differently. When a poll showed that a growing number of Americans are starting to wonder if Obama is a Muslim, the press swung into full White House Protection Mode. Take it away, Bill Burton!

As Obama left for a vacation, Burton told reporters aboard Air Force One that most Americans care more about the economy and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and “they are not reading a lot of news about what religion the president is.”

Burton added, “The president is obviously a Christian. He prays every day.”

With this, the media breathes a sigh of relief. The White House says the president is a Christian, so he’s obviously a Christian. End of story. No reason to examine this question further, so let’s move on, okay?

I believe that only God truly knows the heart of a human being so the determination of who is a Christian and who is not is ultimately up to Him. Based on what he’s said on the campaign trail and as president, I think Barack Obama is a Christian of the social justice variety. I disagree with the more forced egalitarian aspects of that interpretation of Christianity, but recognize that as a Christian, I have a responsibility to recognize the dignity of every human being and help those in need. Where Obama and I likely differ is that I believe the decision to help others should be voluntary and borne of my desire to serve God. Based on what he’s said in the past, Obama seems to believe it should be a governmental decision. It is an interesting debate and one I would honestly welcome from the president.

So if anyone from the White House is reading this, I am totally willing to have a beer summit. In the interests of unity, of course. If you provide the Newcastle, I’m there.

The media doesn’t seem as interested in that debate, since they’re perfectly willing to declare Barack Obama the most Christian president in recent history on the most scant of evidence:

*** The irony here: The big irony of this story: President Obama is more religious than Reagan or H.W. Bush ever was; in fact, he gets Bible verses sent to his blackberry EVERY DAY. FYI, the Pew poll was conducted before the president weighed in on the mosque controversy. One does wonder if it would have helped push back against this nutty narrative had the president picked a church, as he said he would during the campaign, or if he regularly attended church.

Dude.

The president gets Bible verses on his Blackberry. EVERY DAY. Reading this, you’ve got to wonder. Does Pope Benedict have a Blackberry? I think not. So if he doesn’t have a Blackberry, he can’t receive daily Bible verses. If he can’t receive daily Bible verses…is he as devout as Obama?

As I’ve said, I don’t really care what Obama believes. What bothers me is that the press only seems to think a president’s religion is important when his faith can be used to question his policy priorities. If those priorities go against the views of those in the media, then Christianity is a scary fringe faith that needs examining. If the president is progressive, then his faith is pure and he’s only trying to do what’s best for the country. No reason to ask uncomfortable questions.

If Obama says he’s a Christian, that’s perfectly okay.

Just so long as he doesn’t become one of those ‘Christianists.’

Right?

Bar Harbor Police Chief Nathan Young said Wednesday that vehicle traffic along the section of Route 3 that passes by the hotel is expected to be restricted during the Obamas’ visit. All through traffic between the village of Hulls Cove and downtown Bar Harbor will be directed onto the Paradise Hill section of the Acadia National Park road, which parallels Route 3, to either West Street Extension or to Route 233, he said. All heavy trucks coming onto MDI will have to use routes 102, 198 and 233 through Somesville to get to downtown Bar Harbor.

Anyone who lives or works near the Regency, or who is staying there or at a hotel nearby, will be allowed to drive on Route 3 past the Regency during the Obamas’ visit, Young said. The Regency will be open for business while the president and his family are there. A wedding planned for the Regency on Saturday is expected to go ahead as scheduled, the police chief said.

On Wednesday, in preparation for the Obamas’ visit, security and area public safety officials met at the Trenton airport to discuss logistics while officials set up special communications equipment outside an airport building.

According to Allison Navia, manager of the airport, access to the airport will be restricted during the Obamas’ visit. Commercial passenger flights will come and go as scheduled, she said Wednesday, but there will be no recreational, general aviation or sightseeing flights from the airport during those two days. Private flights will be allowed but with higher levels of security screenings. Vehicle access to Caruso Drive, which connects the airport facilities to Route 3, also will be restricted while the Obamas are visiting MDI, she said.

In addition, lobster fishermen who fish near the area will not be able to drop traps between midday Friday and midday Sunday. In the midst of a recession, it seems unwise to prevent people from doing their jobs and earning money. Many of those who may lose business as a result of the travel restrictions related to the Obama visit depend on the summer tourism season for the majority of their income. One weekend may not seem like a big deal, but tell that to the restaurant owners who could lose thousands of dollars or more because customers cannot get to their establishment.

In all, the Obama visit will cut about 3 miles of Route 3 off from public traffic, or make it extremely difficult to take the main route into the tourist town of Bar Harbor. To get an idea of how disruptive this will be, about 2 million tourists visit Acadia National Park each year, the vast majority of them in the summer. It doesn’t look as though the restrictions will impede entrance into the park, but many of the tourists who visit Acadia make a trip into Bar Harbor, or are staying at a hotel in town. Cutting off the main route will increase traffic in other parts of the island, since those cars have to go somewhere.

Those who have planned a summer visit know how much work is involved. Hotel reservations have to be made, transportation has to be planned and schedules have to be laid out so that limited vacation time is used most effectively. Families start planning these vacations months in advance and now many of those who decided to visit Maine this weekend are likely to have their plans disrupted by a president who doesn’t seem to have considered the impact of his visit or where he decided to stay. To highlight just one effect of his visit, if you had planned to visit the island and were looking forward to your sightseeing flight around the beautiful Maine coast, sorry. Hope you can get a refund.

I’m glad the president is coming to Maine. Acadia and Bar Harbor are beautiful this time of year. However, Obama should have planned his vacation in a way that minimized the impact on tourists and tourism in that area. Renting an existing vacation home on a quiet part of the island, or using the private home of a supporter would have been much less disruptive but would have still allowed the First Family to enjoy the beauty of a Maine summer. Presidents have a tough job and need their vacations, but should try to keep their visits from impinging on the vacation plans of the average American family. I hope the president enjoys his visit, but wish he’d made better choices.

In the days following the attacks, I was angry and bewildered. I scoured the web for hours, reading as much news and opinion as I could. One column and one blog stood out to me – Dave Barry’s column and Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Barry’s post-September 11 column is an amazing piece of writing. And Sullivan, writing in a new format called “blogging,” was articulate and unapologetic in his defense of western values as compared to those of the jihadists. I was intrigued by Sullivan’s writing and purchased his book “Virtually Normal,” which is a fascinating and beautifully written examination of societal views on homosexuality and gay marriage.

Sullivan’s blog made me realize the possibilities of the internet and I eventually started my own blog. Basically, he is the reason I entered the blogosphere. I have contributed to his fundraisers and communicated with him via email in the past. I never imagined that one day, he would defend himself against something I had written.

Now to the emails Breitbart claims I referred to – as evidence of my “hypocrisy.” Hot Air’s “Slublog” provided chapter and verse here, here, here and here…So these emails were directly connected to abuse of power by a governor who is currently the GOP leader. They were part of an ethics investigation – and were already in the public domain. And Palin deliberately used a private email account to keep her use of public office to pursue family vendettas out of the public sphere. It seems to me that commenting on emails that have become part of an ethics investigation of a governor is not the same as offering $100,000 to get some embarrassing off-the-record kibbitzing from a blogger on a list-serv.

Sullivan seems to have a strange definition of “public domain.” Nothing in the story he quotes suggests the emails were made public by the Alaskan ethics commission. As the Washington Post makes clear, the emails were given to the reporter by Walter Monegan, a man who was fired by Sarah Palin. In fact, Sullivan admits as much in this post, where he describes the emails as “leaked,” which seems a far cry from released. The second “gotcha” is the result of an FOIA request, as he says. The third seems to have been released by an Anchorage Daily News editor and again, does not seem to be the result of a public inquiry or FOIA request. The fourth, as Karl points out, was highlighted by Sullivan on June 30. In his rebuttal to my post, Sullivan says his use of that email was fair because it was quoted in her memoir. Sullivan quoted the email in June. “Going Rogue” was released in November.

Sullivan next takes issue with my criticism over his obsession with Trig Palin.

Palin held her new-born infant up at the RNC Convention like some scene from the Lion King; she told the crazy story of her wild ride to the Anchorage Daily News long before she was picked by a Google search to be the back up for the leader of the free world. She has written a book full of extremely private details – the nature of her contractions, for example – and made a fortune off it. She is the one who first mentioned “amniotic fluid leaking” and “water-breaking”, not me. She has made speech after speech citing her infant son – just as her teenage daughter has been pushed into every public arena imaginable. There is nothing private about Palin’s story about her child with Down Syndrome. Nothing. To examine the details of a story already told in such detail in the public sphere as a core campaign platform is violating no one’s privacy.

I’m not sure how a mother talking about her child gives a blogger permission to call her a liar and obsess over whether she’s the real mom, but Sullivan seems to think differently. Sullivan again uses the fact that Palin wrote about Trig in her memoir as an excuse to delve into her personal life, conveniently ignoring that most of the Trig-centric posts I linked were written before “Going Rogue” was released.

Sullivan’s rationale for printing Palin’s email seems to be that leaking private emails is okay if the government does it, but if a private citizen such as Andrew Breitbart is involved, there is an absolute right to privacy. His defensiveness in this post leads to an obvious question: was Andrew Sullivan a contributor to Journolist? Does he have a personal stake in keeping that archive private?

If so, why?

I’ve had $100,000 burning in my pocket for the last three months and I’d really like to spend it on a worthy cause. So how about this: in the interests of journalistic transparency, and to offer the American public a unique insight in the workings of the Democrat-Media Complex, I’m offering $100,000 for the full “JournoList” archive, source fully protected. Now there’s an offer somebody can’t refuse.

Earlier today, on his Twitter feed, Breitbart revealed that his offer offended the sensibilities of Andrew Sullivan. In a post entitled, “Politics as Total War,” Sullivan wrote some unintentionally hilarious commentary:

When Andrew Breitbart offers $100,000 for a private email list-serv archive, essentially all bets are off. Every blogger or writer who has ever offered an opinion is now on warning: your opponents will not just argue against you, they will do all they can to ransack your private life, cull your email in-tray, and use whatever material they have to unleash the moronic hounds of today’s right-wing base…This is what the right now is: no solutions, just anger, paranoia, insecurity and partisan hatred.

I know Sullivan’s writing is a target-rich environment, but this is just remarkable hypocrisy from a man who regularly uses his platform at The Atlantic to demonize those with whom he disagrees. His concern over one’s private life and email accounts must be a newly minted opinion. After all, during the 2008 presidential campaign and after, Sullivan wrote post after post after post after post after post in which he referenced things Sarah Palin had written in emails. Since Sullivan and Palin are probably not in regular email contact with one another, it’s safe to assume Sullivan repeatedly quoted email that Palin wrote in confidence.

Sullivan also made quite a name for himself “ransacking the private life” of Palin in his truly bizarre obsession with the former VP candidate’s uterus. A search of Sullivan’s site for mentions of “Trig” yields 668 results. At least one of the posts compliments Palin on her decision to keep the child. Many others, however, are Sullivan engaging in a campaign to prove to his readers that Palin is not Trig’s real mother. This fixation led to posts in which he scrutinized anecdotes and pictures in an attempt to prove Palin was lying. He repeatedly called the birth story into question and demanded transparency from the McCain campaign. He even questioned whether we were still a democracy because, after all, no one in the press had asked about the delivery story.

In his response to Breitbart, Sullivan bemoaned the right’s “anger, paranoia, insecurity and partisan hatred.” Perhaps he should do a little more introspection of his own anger, paranoia, insecurity*, and partisan hatred.

*Although his “comments of the day” could fall into this category, delving into it too much seemed a bit overly personal.

First, a confession – I am a big fan of musicals. If I were to compile a bucket list, seeing a Broadway show would be near the top. It would fall only slightly below actually performing in one, as I’ve always harbored a secret desire to play Seymour Krelborn in “Little Shop of Horrors.” What impresses me about musicals is the ability of the songwriters and performers to advance the plot using both song and narrative. Music is a powerful medium. Plato once wrote that “music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.” I sincerely believe that music can communicate ideas in a more powerful way than narrative because words are easier to remember when married to melody. Anyone who’s ever had an earworm song stuck in their head has experienced that power.

Although I’ve never seen the play, some of my favorite songs are from “Les Miserables.” Some of the songs are fun to sing (“Stars,” “I Dreamed a Dream”) and others have the ability to create goosebumps and/or emotion (“Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” “On My Own.”) One of the strongest songs in the play is “Do You Hear the People Sing,” which is quoted at the beginning of this post. It is a defiant song – at times, it almost feels more shouted than sung. The characters who sing it are clearly fed up with the status quo and are communicating not only that frustration, but also a willingness to fight for what they believe in, no matter the cost. It is a song performed by those who are tired of being ignored by people in power.

In other words, it’s the perfect tea party anthem. I can’t remember where I saw it, but I’ve heard that Laura Ingraham has used it as bumper music on her radio show. As I watch what is going on in Washington, DC, it’s a song that has come to mind on numerous occasions.

The political ruling class in this country is ignoring us, and has been for some time. The true roots of the tea party movement were planted when the GOP ran Congress and used their power to engage in an orgy of government spending. Their largesse angered fiscal conservatives, many of whom stayed home in 2006, the year Democrats regained control of Congress and the nation’s checkbook. In 2008, the fad of Bush-hating was at its peak and America expanded the Democratic majority in Congress and elected a president who lied about his desire to enact a net spending cut. That president and Congress, reveling in their power, quickly passed a stimulus bill that did little more than reward Democrat constituencies. After that bill was passed, in the summer of 2009, the people began to sing. Tea parties cropped up around the country and those who participated were quickly dismissed as racist cranks by the Democrats and the media.

At the end of that year, the Senate, at the insistence of the president, passed a healthcare bill full of kickbacks and special deals. In January of 2010, the public’s song grew louder when Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won the Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy. Later that year, the tone-deaf president and his Congressional enablers – Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid – muscled the healthcare bill through Congress. When Republicans failed to win special elections, the powerful thought the people had stopped singing. They were, and are, wrong.

Openly defying the will of the people has only made their contempt for the populace more brazen. The people are still singing, but in their arrogance, those in power continue to spoil themselves with our money, demand special treatment even if it inconveniences others, and steal from the next generation to appease the perpetually greedy. With every dollar they request, Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress are adding links to the chains of debt that will enslave future generations of Americans. As the father of two daughters whose quality of life will be impacted by the effects of that debt, I take that personally. Watching the president put his own ideological ambitions above the fiscal well-being of this country makes me join in the chorus of a people who are unwilling to simply lay down and accept that fate. For the sake of my daughters and those of their generation, I have joined in the fight that will give them the right to be free.

In five months, we have the opportunity to rebuke those who have spent a year and a half ignoring us, mocking our concerns and belittling us as racists and haters. Between now and then, I encourage you to donate to candidates who will fight on our behalf and work to help them get elected. Join in the chorus and show the arrogant statists in government where political power truly resides.

The majority of songs in “Les Miserables” are pretty depressing. However, in the epilogue, the play takes an unexpected turn toward the positive:

These lyrics are a good reminder that although we may be angry, there is no reason for discouragement. The flame may flicker at times, but it never dies.

Now, onto November.

This picture was taken on May 19, 1970 and it depicts a moment that these two had anticipated for some time. In the years previous, these two had met, dated, fallen in love and courted. Eventually, on a day unknown to us, a young Albert Gore nervously held a ring in his hand while asking the woman he loved to marry him. This is no small thing. One of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life is the moment I dropped to my knee, took a ring out of my pocket and proposed to my now-wife. To this day, I can recall exactly where I was, what the weather was like, the look on my now-wife’s face at the time and how the gravel against my knee felt while I knelt. I’ve been married over a decade now but, to indulge in a cliche, I can remember that moment now as though it was yesterday.

I suspect Al and Mary Elizabeth Gore have reminisced, separately, about the early days of their relationship in recent weeks or months. I have no idea what the Gore marriage was like behind closed doors, but the fact that it lasted 40 years is enough to convince me of their affection and commitment to one another. That it didn’t last surprisingly saddens me. Like Jim Geraghty, I am surprised that a marriage that survived so much is ending at such a seemingly odd time.

Forty years is a long time. I am only slightly younger than the Gore marriage. Despite what I feel about Al Gore politically, I was always impressed by the fact that he and his wife seemed to have a stable, loving relationship. When Gore lip-locked Tipper at the 2000 convention, I thought it was a bit much, but at the same time I could relate. The man had just secured his party’s nomination for president of the United States. He was standing on the stage with the woman he had shared his life with for decades. A little celebration was in order – if there was ever a moment to indulge in affection, that would be it.

When Al Gore lost the presidential election, I rejoiced. His decision to contest the election results was one of the worst and most divisive political moves I have ever seen. Gore put his own disappointment and ambition above the country’s best interest and in doing so, planted the seeds that would eventually blossom into Bush Derangement Syndrome. In 2008, that blossom came to fruition when an unqualified, charismatic senator was elected to the presidency. I believe Al Gore’s petulance helped Barack Obama ascend to the highest office in the land. For that reason alone, Gore’s decision to fight was, and is, highly regrettable.

Despite all of that, I can find no malicious glee in Gore’s marriage troubles, and am disturbed in those who can. As a conservative, I believe in the sanctity of marriage. The ring on my finger attests to that. I believe marriage is sacred, and for that reason, find it inappropriate to feel a strong sense of schadenfreude about the Gore divorce. Frankly, I’ve been a bit disappointed in conservatives who seem to take this divorce too lightly. Divorce is not always the worst choice in a relationship; there are circumstances where it might be the best. However, no matter how much I disagree with Al Gore on almost every issue, I am pro-marriage enough to mourn the death of a 40-year-old relationship.

If marriage is truly sacred, we should be saddened by the end of any that ends when two people grow apart, regardless of who is ending their relationship. I may not agree with Al Gore’s ideology, but I do sympathize with the pain he must feel in ending a marriage that started like any other – with a nervous man on his knee asking a woman to spend the rest of his life with him. A marriage proposal is a moment of pure, undiluted, hope. We should not be callous when that spark of hope goes out, even if we disagree with those who are ending their relationship.

The year he was born, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending World War I. In the United States, the 18th Amendment took effect, beginning America’s experiment with Prohibition. Both of these events and their consequences would play a role in my grandfather’s life. The Treaty of Versailles ensured a future conflict with Germany. That war, and the substance that led to the 18th Amendment and its repeal, would lead to a struggle of a very different kind in the life of a man I would someday call ‘Grampy.’

In 1941, my grandfather was a musician who was wooing the woman I would someday call “Grammy.” He was the “quiet man of music” perfectly described in Dan Fogelberg’s “Leader of the Band.” Unfortunately, I do not know how he got my grandmother to marry him or any details of their courtship. All I know is that on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. At the end of that month, the young couple that I would come to know as my grandparents got married, and my grandfather was sent to fight in a war that he would survive, but never really talk about. After the war, he returned to the US and fathered one of my uncles, my aunt, and the man who would become my father. The Baby Boom generation was born of a nationwide collective desire to overcome the death and destruction of World War II. Those who saw friends fall in battle seemed compelled to create new life as a way of dealing with the horrors they endured. Although they had won a war, world conflict did not end. My grandfather’s youngest son, my father, would go on to serve his country in the Navy during America’s long Cold War against the Soviet Union.

When I was a child, I knew my grandfather had served in WWII. What I didn’t know was what he did in that war. The only stories he was willing to tell were those he found either funny or unassuming. I learned that during the war, my grandfather served as an artillery spotter. One day, in that role, he was looking at an intersection and watching the German army move through it. On that day, he told the artillery to fire for effect. They did, and the shots hit right on target. At this point in the story, he would chuckle and say that he and his fellow solider radioed the artillery to keep on doing what they were doing.

Not all of his stories were as light.

On December 16, 1944, the German army launched an attack that led to what would eventually be known as the Battle of the Bulge. My grandfather was there. The only thing he ever said about the German offensive was that at one point, “things got a little busy for awhile.” To this day, I do not know whether my grandfather killed other men in battle, but given his reluctance to talk about it, I suspect he did. I never asked him about it, but if I had, I doubt he would have answered my questions.

My grandfather survived the war, returned to the United States and grew his family. He also, unfortunately, grew dependent on the bottle. I don’t know whether his WWII experiences led him to that battle, or whether it preceded the war, but I do know his struggles with alcoholism lasted decades. Ultimately, though, he won that war. His victory allowed him to connect with the children of his children. My memories of him are of a gentle man with a strong hug who liked ice cream with peanut butter and watching the lake on his camp in northern Maine, listening to the loons cry and enjoying the peace and quiet. As a child, I used to enjoy just sitting with him in silence while at the same time wondering why he stared at the water so long. Now, I understand, and wish I had been able to really talk about what he was thinking as he looked at the water. Was he seeking peace? Redemption? Forgiveness?

I will never know.

In February of 1994, my grandfather died. I was 21 years old. Even though I have good memories of him and the many times we spent together, I still feel as though I never really knew him, and I regret to this day not taking the time to talk to him in detail about the years he spent serving his country during the largest conflict in which our country has ever been engaged.

All I know is that I miss him.

This Memorial Day weekend, I urge all of you who have relatives that served in World War II, or Korea, or Vietnam to talk to your loved ones about their experiences in those wars. Learn how they served their country, and thank them for that service. After all, they have earned the opportunity to tell their stories. Make Memorial Day truly meaningful by taking time to listen to those who fought to preserve your freedom.

You will not regret it.

A confession.

Yesterday, against my better judgment, I did something awful. Caught in a moment of weakness, perhaps even a moment of insanity, I engaged in behavior that horrified my family and would have given my doctor fits if he’d seen it. The shame burns, but I must admit the cause. My friends…I tried a KFC Double Down. And frankly, it was awful. The first bite was great…tender chicken, spicy mayo, melted cheese, and the bacon…oh, the bacon. Alas, subsequent bites were more disappointing and in the end…there was only salt.

So imagine my relief when I read this earlier today. The government may not have been there to prevent my transgression, but it will be there in the future to help tortured, salt-loving souls like me. Thank you, feds. Thank you.

The government intends to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to adjust the American palate to a less salty diet, according to FDA sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the initiative had not been formally announced.

Officials have not determined the salt limits. In a complicated undertaking, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market, sources said. Working with food manufacturers, the government would set limits for salt in these categories, designed to gradually ratchet down sodium consumption. The changes would be calibrated so that consumers barely notice the modification.

The legal limits would be open to public comment, but administration officials do not think they need additional authority from Congress.

“This is a 10-year program,” one source said. “This is not rolling off a log. We’re talking about a comprehensive phase-down of a widely used ingredient. We’re talking about embedded tastes in a whole generation of people.”

Like Mary Katharine Ham, I’m disturbed by the statist sentiments in this story, even though I have good reason to sympathize with the government’s agenda here. A few years ago, my doctor noticed that my blood pressure was slightly high on a consistent basis. And by “slightly,” I mean 120/95. He advised me to start exercising and cut back on sodium. After six months of somewhat bland, salt-less food and consistent cardio exercise, he took my blood pressure again. The results? 115/90. Thanks, genetics!

Since then, I’ve been on blood pressure medication and I take steps to limit my sodium intake. I choose low-salt snacks and haven’t salted my food in months. Once in awhile, I do indulge (curse you, Double Down!) but for the most part, I follow my doctor’s orders and behave. As shocking as it may seem, the government played no part in my decision to pursue a low-sodium diet. I made the choice to cut back without any help from bureaucrats at the FDA. Imagine. Without help, I’ve made the choice that my health is important enough for me to change my behavior. No one is trying to reset my palate or set my sodium limits. I’m simply choosing to take responsibility for myself without asking anyone else to sacrifice on my behalf.

The Obama administration seems to think I should thank them for freeing me from the horrible burden of taking five seconds to glance at a product’s nutritional information before purchasing it. Unfortunately for them, I am not. Quite the opposite, in fact – I’m insulted by their assumption that I’m incapable of making those choices for myself. Odd. When the ‘right’ to abortion is at stake, liberals like to scream “my body, my choice.” Eating a bag of chips, though? Well, that’s almost sedition, isn’t it?

It’s pretty discouraging. In Obama’s America, killing a fetus is a right, but consuming sodium-rich foods is enough to instigate government regulation. At this point, I don’t know whether to weep or…well, weep. Thanks, 52 percenters, for making this possible.

I have to admit, though. The actions of the president you voted into office haven’t helped my blood pressure all that much.

Oh well, I guess Obamacare will take care of that.

At times like this, we need a thermonuclear palate cleanser. The Daisy Scouts have heard your cries, and they deliver:

The Hampden Daisy Troop consists of a dozen 6- and 7-year-old girls who are in first grade at the Earl C. McGraw School. Only five could make it Friday night, however, because of a flu bug that’s been going around, according to Bonnie Quesnel, one of the troop mothers.

Quesnel said the group checked with the airport and troop greeters and was told they needed to bring at least 350 boxes because troop flights range from 150 to 350 passengers. The group, with the help of many supporters, raised enough money to buy 460 boxes of the top three selling Girl Scout Cookie varieties — Peanut Butter Patties, Thin Mints and Caramel deLites, formerly called Samoas.

Jill Cramm, another troop mother, said the idea for the project came to her after she saw, “The Way We Get By,” a documentary about the troop greeters who work out of BIA.

“We watched it as a family and I really got to thinking, ‘What can we do to help the troop greeters?’” Cramm said.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for “The Way We Get By,” grab your tissues and watch it here. The people of Bangor, Maine have greeted every plane full of American soldiers since the first Gulf War and they recently greeted their millionth soldier. These volunteers provide snacks, cell phones and hugs to the men and women who serve our country in the military. And, as this story shows, they’ve inspired younger generations to follow in their footsteps.

The news of late can be discouraging, but there are green shoots like this that let you know there’s hope for the future. And yes, the Maine Troop Greeters take donations.

The doors of the Expo have opened and tickets to see President Barack Obama are being distributed to the line of waiting people.

Nicole Perrine, who was the first in line at 12:45 this morning, walked in quietly, hands in pockets, and when she got the first two tickets held them up and smiled.

“I feel pretty good,” she said. “Now I can go home and sleep.”

Others leaving after waiting for hours held up tickets happily and smiled.

Carl Inkel, who was third in line, brandished his tickets and said, “Wooo-hooo, Obama rocks.”

The number of people who waited in line isn’t all that surprising. According to the Maine Secretary of State’s website, the city of Portland cast 36,840 votes for president in 2008.  John McCain received 7,844 of those votes.  Obama received 28,317 – about 77%.  That’s a full 20 points ahead of his statewide total of 57% of the vote.  Portland is a liberal city in the most liberal part of the state.

Which begs the question – why does Obama feel the need to sell his health care plan in the most liberal, urban part of a largely rural state?  Shouldn’t he be selling it to a less devoted area?  Why not Penobscot County, where the election results nearly mirror the national percentages?  Why not Washington County, where the result was almost 50-50?  It’s not as though Portland has a monopoly on Maine media.  It has roughly the same number of television stations and newspapers as Bangor, which voted for Obama, but by a smaller margin.  It’s almost as though the president has purposely chosen the area of the state where he is guaranteed the friendliest, most liberal audience.

According to a Congressional report, the cost of operating Air Force One is $56,518 an hour.  This figure does not take into account the cost of security and transportation of presidential vehicles.  In addition, Maine taxpayers will foot the bill for the state and local police who will provide additional security at the event.  All of this money is being spent to sell a health care reform bill that has already been signed into law to what is sure to be a mostly liberal audience in a deep blue state.  In the middle of a recession, this doesn’t seem like a particularly good use of taxpayer money.

Obama doesn’t need to sell this law here, and frankly, I don’t think that’s why he’s visiting Maine.  It seems to me he’s not here to convince Mainers this law is a good idea (we know otherwise), but to take a victory lap on our dime.

I hope a lot of tea partiers show up tomorrow.

Last Sunday, as I watched the House of Representatives pass the health care reform bill, my first thought was of my daughters, one of whom is pictured above.

On the day the ObamaCare bill passed, my older daughter was three years old and my younger daughter was one. As I watched Nancy Pelosi gavel the vote to a close, I realized that if this law was not repealed, my daughters would someday be faced with tax levels never before paid by American citizens. In their quest for power, Obama, Pelosi and Reid have ensured that an entire generation of citizens will be enslaved by the debt these fiscal libertines have accumulated.

Their blatant disregard for the economic well-being of America’s future citizens is both unconscionable and infuriating. Taking on the personal, sociological, and economic challenges of parenthood is hard enough. Watching an out-of-control president and congress put their ideological goals above the future economic prosperity of my family and making parenthood even harder makes me wonder just what the hell 52% of my fellow citizens were thinking when they cast their votes in 2008.

As corny as it may sound to admit, I am no longer capable of keeping my emotions separate from my political views. Fatherhood has made me more aware of how decisions of politicians today will affect the lives of my two girls in the future. The bad decisions of our current Congress has made me realize, for the first time in my adult life, I am not proud of my country government.

Edit – As an emailer and commenters have reminded me, this is still a country of which I can be proud. And I still am proud of this country. I was trying to copy some rather well-known criticism of the country, but realize now that I should have been more specific. Our government has failed us, not our country. Time to do what we can to ensure that the statists currently running that government lose their power in November.

So naturally, I couldn’t resist commenting on his latest bit of nuance. On Sunday, when the health care bill passed in the House, Frum decided that there was only one person to blame: Rush Limbaugh. His nefarious motive? There were beds to sell:

When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

Of course, Frum has to ignore the fact that since 1988, Limbaugh has been making these arguments pretty consistently and Republicans have had some rather significant victories between then and now. Frum doesn’t stop at making a nonsensical argument, though. He tosses in a gratuitous insult for good measure, accusing Limbaugh of wanting the GOP to fail so can make us more angry which will increase the radio show’s ratings and allow Rush to sell more ads for Sleepnumber beds.

Frum’s insulting implication is that Rush doesn’t really believe what he’s saying, and that Limbaugh is only ratcheting up the rhetoric to increase his own personal wealth. It’s a remarkably nasty knock on Rush from a guy who only a few paragraphs before was urging moderation in political discourse.

Fast forward to today. The Wall St. Journal zings Frum, saying he “now makes his living as the media’s go-to basher of fellow Republicans, which is a stock Beltway role.” Frum’s response: how dare you accuse me of selling my views!

I do want to answer, finally, the Journal’s ugly personal remark. I worked on the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page for three years. Through much of that time, one of my duties was to see into print the column written by Paul Gigot, now the paper’s editor. We know each other pretty well. Paul cannot seriously believe that my views are for sale. But if he did believe it, surely he’d credit me with the acuity to know where the highest price is paid: and that it’s not where I’ve raised my flag.

What’s most amazing to me is how effortlessly Frum jumps from accusing Limbaugh of selling his views to being outraged at having the same accusation made of him. A more self-aware writer would acknowledge that the WSJ accusations made him realize how insulting his previous rhetoric was toward Limbaugh. Such an acknowledgment would have been a classy move that might have ever-so-slightly decreased some of the antagonism between him and more conservative commentators.

Like the headline says, it was a missed opportunity, but at least we know now he’s a fan of Emerson.

I live in a blue state. One of my senators helped give this bill life, and both representatives are going to vote to send it to the president’s desk no matter how many calls I make or letters I send. Which explains why Stage Two keeps calling.

And when Stage Two calls, I turn to photoshop…

Yeah, it’s safe to say I’m a bit irritated.

There’s something almost delightfully shameless in the criticism of Vitter for “breaking his vows” to his wife. I seem to remember a time when extramarital sexual activity on the part of a political husband was a personal issue, not a political one. The allegations about Ensign seem a bit more serious, but Mitch McConnell isn’t exactly jumping to Ensign’s defense. Which is more than one could say about how…certain other Democratic leaders have dealt with their scandal-touched colleagues.

My favorite part of the ad is the end, where Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff pop up for no particular reason other than to say “Hey, remember 2006 and the culture of corruption? Those were good times, weren’t they? Rangel? Massa? Those are not the ethics scandals you were looking for.” Can’t really blame them for trying to relive the glory days, I guess.

Although the DNC really gives this approach the old college try, one has to wonder which will resonate more deeply with the American public: extramarital affairs and soliciting prostitution, or passing a bill that impacts one-sixth of the economy by ‘deeming’ it passed after “softening” on your pledge to make the bill available online?

Hmmmm…

President Obama’s message to progressives who are dissatisfied with the Senate health care bill is two fold: First: Don’t forget about the uninsured. Second: Don’t forget what failure to pass this bill would do to the party and my presidency…

…Obama reminded the assembled Democrats that doing nothing would be politically disastrous. “To maintain a strong presidency we need to pass this bill,” the President said, according to Grijalva.

What Obama doesn’t seem to realize is that his presidency is already damaged, no matter what happens with health care. If he manages to persuade enough Democrats to pass such a profoundly unpopular bill, the Democrats will pay in November. However, if he doesn’t pass it, the Democratic base will regard him as weak. Since those Democrats are basically all that are propping up his approval ratings, it’s hard to figure out which scenario is worse.

The true measure of how far Obama has fallen, though, is how Democrats regard him. Few seem to be asking him to campaign for them, and his approval ratings aren’t at record lows, but they are likely nowhere near where Obama thought he would be at this point in his presidency.

Of course, Obama has no one but himself to blame for this. He campaigned as a moderate who could bring the country together, but lurched toward hard liberalism almost as soon as he took office, and is now urging Democrats to embrace the very ideology that crushed his approval rating. Obama underestimated how angry voters who believed his campaign rhetoric would get once they realized he was lying to them.

Obama’s approval ratings fell because Americans don’t like being lied to, and for that reason, those ratings are unlikely to improve until the president shows a willingness to respond to popular opinion. Frankly, given how Obama has governed to this point, I am not optimistic. I hope the American people deliver a firm rebuke in November, but more importantly I hope Obama gets the message. If he doesn’t, then it may be time to start worrying about his ability to acknowledge political reality.

Sun columnist Jon Ralston is reporting that the Tea Party has qualified as a third party in Nevada and will have a candidate in the Senate race to battle for the seat held by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The party has filed a Certificate of Existence but needs to get 1 percent of the electorate to vote for its candidate in November to permanently qualify, according to the report.

Ralston reported that Jon Ashjian will be the Tea Party’s U.S. Senate candidate on the November ballot. Ashjian still must declare his candidacy.

The tea party movement has had phenomenal success in joining like-minded people together to protest current government policies and advocate for a return to the country’s foundational principles. The tea party movement is a collective realization on the part of a great number of people that the government has no intention of reigning in spending and that continuing on our current fiscal course will lead to future disaster. Although I agree with the sentiments and beliefs of the tea party movement, I think moving from ‘tea party’ to ‘Tea Party’ is a mistake.

As Bill Whittle argues in his latest ‘Afterburner,’ third party movements rarely succeed. For better or for worse, we are a two-party country and third parties will always be at an electoral disadvantage.

The best way to change the direction of the country is to replace big-spending incumbents with advocates of small government and fiscal responsibility. If the purpose of the tea party movement is to work toward change, creating advantageous electoral scenarios for incumbents is not the way to achieve that goal. The beliefs of the two front-runners in the Nevada GOP primary seem to align with those of the tea party movement. Running a third candidate who has the potential to siphon votes from one of those challengers and give Harry Reid the re-election he does not deserve is an unwise use of time and resources.

This doesn’t mean the GOP incumbent should simply take the votes of tea partiers for granted. If that incumbent has voted to increase spending, or taken action to increase the size of government, they should be challenged in a primary. The GOP has to return to first principles and getting rid of big-government Republicans is an important step in that process.

However, the tea party movement should resist the temptation to run its own candidates and create three-way races. Unless the Tea Party movement wants to be known as the group that kept a lot of incumbent Democrats in power by splitting the conservative/independent vote, it needs to have a more strategic approach to choosing candidates and winning elections.

Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation’s centerpiece — a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers — would work only on the margins.

As for the bill’s effectiveness, tax experts and business leaders said companies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break. Before businesses start hiring, they need increased demand for their products, more work for their employees and more revenue to pay those workers.

“We’re skeptical that it’s going to be a big job creator,” said Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. “There’s certainly nothing wrong with giving a tax break to a business that’s hired a new worker, especially in these tough times. But in terms of being an incentive to hire a lot of workers, we’re skeptical.”

$5,000 may sound like quite a substantial tax credit, but it can cost that or more simply to hire and orient a new employee. In fact, according to some studies, “turnover costs for a manager average 150% of salary, including tangible costs of hiring new workers and relocation, and intangible costs such as the new worker’s inefficiency and lost productivity while the job is vacant.” The median household income in the United States is $50,740. Using that figure, it can cost $76,110 to hire and train a new worker. The $5,000 tax credit would cover about 6% of that cost.

The excerpt above summarizes what employers are really looking for when hiring new workers: increased demand for their products, more work for employees and increased revenue. Creating that environment would require the government to pursue policies that allow people to keep more of their money and minimize economic uncertainty.

Unfortunately, that’s not what President Obama and the Congress are doing. The not-yet-dead health care bill, cap and trade and the proposed bank taxes are all creating uncertainty. In uncertain economic times, people tend to hold on to their money rather than spend it, and money in a savings account doesn’t do much to stimulate economic growth.

If the president and Congress want to stimulate the economy, they’ll drop their statist dreams and focus on what has worked in the past.

In many ways, Barack Obama has lived up to his promise. He has created a thoughtful, pragmatic administration marked by a culture of honest and vigorous debate. When Obama makes a decision, you can be sure that he has heard and accounted for every opposing argument. If he senses an important viewpoint is not represented at a meeting, he will stop the proceedings and demand that it gets included.

If the evidence leads him in directions he finds uncomfortable, he will still follow the evidence. He is beholden to no ideological camp, and there is no group in his political base that he has not angered at some point in his first year.

Really, David? Really?

Three days after taking office, Obama’s response to Republicans who disagreed with the economic stimulus plan was “I won.” Obama had been president less than a month when in February he openly mocked Republicans during a speech to the Democratic caucus.

In April, he told a group of bankers that he was the “only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

In May, Obama threatened to sic the White House press corps on Chrysler bondholders who disagreed with his plan to bail out GM.

In August, Obama said he did not want “the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking,” preferring them to “just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”

In September, John Boehner revealed that Obama had not invited GOP leaders to the White House for meetings on healthcare reform since April.

In October, the White House declared war on Fox News and tried to encourage other news organizations to alienate them.

Earlier this month, after both houses of Congress passed different healthcare bills, Obama agreed to a plan that would allow Democratic leaders to sidestep conference committee to once again shut the GOP out of the process. This, despite his oft-repeated promise on the campaign trail to make the debate open and on C-SPAN.

Yesterday, Politico reported that Obama plans to take a “combative” turn to fight for healthcare if Scott Brown wins today’s election in Massachusetts.

I’m sure there are other examples, but these stories do not paint a picture of a president interested in “honest and vigorous” debate, and the arguments of those who may disagree with him. His actions on healthcare alone suggest not one who puts evidence-based pragmatism ahead of ideology. It’s time for Brooks to bury his Fantasy Obama and face reality – he was suckered.

To meet current and projected shortages, nursing education programs need to increase their capacity by approximately 90 percent. However, these programs are faced with a severe shortage of faculty, making it difficult to expand; and the already small pool of qualified faculty is rapidly shrinking—almost a third are over the age of 55 and there is a dearth of baccalaureate-level nurses eligible to enter graduate programs. This has caused a sixfold increase in the number of applicants denied admission to nursing schools since 2002.

In other words, nursing schools need to almost double the number of students they graduate into the workforce. There is no shortage of students who want to enter nursing programs, but accreditation requirements mandate a very low student-faculty ratio for those programs, so the number of slots tends to be extremely limited. And, as the excerpt above indicates, the already-small number of faculty is dwindling, which further limits the number of nurses entering the workforce. As the shortage grows worse, the nurses already in the field are forced to work longer hours, which both increases the burnout rate and decreases the quality of patient care.

In short, we don’t have enough nurses in this country to meet our healthcare needs, and those needs are only going to grow as the baby boom generation ages and requires more acute medical care. So what does this have to do with Obamacare? To answer that question, one only needs to look north, where the nursing shortage is reaching near-epidemic levels. Because Canada’s healthcare is “free,” there is high demand for those services and the available resources are consumed all-too-quickly, leading to shortages. How has that affected nursing care? I’ll let the Canadian government explain:

As budgets have been cut in healthcare settings, nurses have been caught in the middle of a speed-up. Simply put, there are fewer nurses to do more nursing, and nurses are simultaneously expected to pick up non-nursing tasks that were not previously the routine responsibility of nursing staff. Nurses are educated to care for patients, but the shortage of support staff has meant that nurses must attend to ancillary needs while patient care is neglected. Unfortunately those other tasks cannot be ignored – patients need meals delivered, they need to get to operating rooms and they need supplies and equipment – and nurses are doing them.

Nurses have a finite number of hours in their shifts, so time they spend performing such tasks is time they cannot spend on direct patient care. Add into that equation the effect this has on nurse morale, and you have a perfect recipe for nurse burnout, which leads to nurses leaving the workforce and a further deterioration of quality in care. So where do those nurses go?

One guess.

President Obama and the Democrats may denigrate the American healthcare system in order to pass their version of “reform,” but it would be interesting to see them explain why, if our healthcare system is so terrible, nurses flock to our shores for the chance to work in it. There is a major difference between our nursing shortage and Canada’s. Here, we lack the capacity to train enough nurses to meet our needs. In Canada, they lack the funds to pay enough nurses to sustain the system. True healthcare reform would seek a solution to the problem of supply in the interests of improving care. Obamacare, on the other hand, puts political correctness first.

Under the Democrats’ plans, if a medical school wants to receive contracts and grants from the federal government, it must operate under a quota system and be able to prove it. On Page 909, the House bill states: “In awarding grants or contracts under this section, the (HHS) secretary shall give preference to entities that have a demonstrated record of the following: . . . training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.”

This policy may help fund nursing programs in some parts of the country, but it will do little to alleviate the shortage of medical care in geographic areas where there simply are not enough minorities to recruit into medical programs. Our shortage of healthcare professionals – nurses and doctors – is too serious to be subordinated to a misguided affirmative action program.

The Carnegie study is not the first to show the extent of the nursing shortage, but Democrats in Congress should fully understand the effects of their reform on that shortage as they ‘debate’ the bill behind closed doors.

Like ace says, you helped pay for it by working and paying taxes, so you might as well click the link and enjoy it. And hey, they said “teabag” which makes it edgy, or something.

Personally, I’m not really all that excited about helping to fund propaganda that is both crude and insulting, so I fired up the word processor and wrote a letter to each member of my congressional delegation, something I rarely do. Usually, I send comments via email or the contact pages on their websites. The letters go out in the mail tomorrow. When they open the letters, this is what they’ll read:

I am writing to express my displeasure with an animated video hosted on National Public Radio’s website. The video is available at the following web address:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120344047 and although it is labeled as an opinion piece, is inappropriate considering that the funding structure of NPR includes taxpayer dollars.

The video mocks the so-called “Tea Party” movement, portraying them as people incapable of understanding the complexities of the debate over health care reform. While there has undoubtedly been some overheated rhetoric used to oppose the health care reform proposal, it is improper for an organization supported in part by taxpayers to malign citizens exercising their right to speak out against actions of their government. In hosting this video, NPR is showing derision for those who have legitimate and substantive disagreements with the proposed health care legislation. The very title of the video, “How to Speak Tea Bag,” is insulting, as it is derived from a crude sexual slang. It’s sad that NPR, a station I enjoy, would resort to such a puerile attack on those who disagree with the health care reform proposal.

I would ask that your office please look into the decision-making process that allowed such a video to be hosted by NPR and encourage the media organization to show more discretion in its editorial choices and respect for the opinion of those whose taxes play a small role in helping them stay on the air. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, and for your attention to this matter.

I encourage you to do the same.

You bet he [Reid] made deals, including the now highly controversial buy-out of Nebraska’s extra Medicaid costs to win the 60th vote for the bill from Sen. Ben Nelson.

You should notice this about political analysis: When a writer admires a wheeler-dealer, he or she inevitably compares that politician to Lyndon B. Johnson and typically asks: Why can’t others be more like LBJ? When a writer wants to condemn exactly the same sort of horse-trading, LBJ recedes and some other metaphor — the popular one now is “Chicago-style politics” — is wielded to imply highly unprincipled behavior. With just a few keystrokes, shrewd pragmatism is transformed into terribly sinful activity.

E.J. Dionne, January 31, 2006:

Second, a Congress saying that it really, really wants to change the way it does business ratified a backroom deal in the wee hours of the morning that almost nobody who voted on it knew anything about. Many on the right have been waging war on “earmarks,” those special projects that members of Congress insert into bills, often at the last minute — and that have proliferated since the Republicans took over the House. But secret special-interest deals can be at least as costly, often more so, than many of those earmarks.

I know defending someone like Harry Reid has got to be tough, but is it too much to ask that the new spin not contradict the old?

Most people
In America
Liked their healthcare a lot

But the Reid,
Who lived in Washington,
Did not

The Reid hated healthcare, thought the system was smashed
Now please don’t ask why his hate was so unabashed
It could be that he was filled with much gall
It could be, perhaps, that his glasses were too small
But I think the most likely reason of all
May have been that his heart to Obama was enthralled

But
Whatever the reason,
His worship or glasses
He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating the masses
Staring down from his perch with a sour, nasty frown
At the people with healthcare below in their town
For he knew every person with coverage below
Disagreed with him, and that made them his foe

“They’re happy with their healthcare” he snarled with a sneer
“The polls are against me! Their opinion is clear!”
Then he growled with his thin fingers not able to hold still
“I MUST find a way to pass this Obamacare bill!”
For next year, he knew…

All the Americans would start calling their reps
And would wake up to his plans and rush the Capitol steps
And then! Oh the noise! Oh, the noise, noise, noise!
That’s one thing he hated! The NOISE NOISE NOISE NOISE!

Then the Americans, young and old, would start to protest
And they’d protest, and protest!
They’d PROTEST PROTEST PROTEST PROTEST!
They would start their tea parties and threaten his career
Which was something that filled the Reid with great fear

And THEN
They’d do something he liked least of all!
Every American, the tall and the small
Would all stand together, and with one voice cry
“You’re not listening to us, and have gone awry!”

And they’d cry and they’d cry
And they’d CRY CRY CRY CRY!
And the more the Reid thought of the people’s point of view
The more the Reid thought, “I know just what to do.”
“I’ll ignore what they think and continue to pursue”
“A takeover of healthcare…we’ll shove it through”
“I have sixty votes and nothing to lose”

Then he got an idea
An awful idea
The Reid
Got a wonderful, awful idea!

“I know just what to do!” the Reid laughed in his throat
As he used taxpayer money to buy every vote
And he chuckled and said “What a great little trick!”
“I’ll use pork to make this bill pass so quick!”

“All I need is some suckers”
And the Reid looked around
And since this was Washington, such lowlifes abound
So Reid offered some cash
And promised some pork
“Votes are easy to buy, this will pass without fail!”
The Reid made many deals and made the sale
“With so many votes, we will surely prevail!”

THEN
He loaded the bill
With plenty of presents
For those willing to sell
Their principles for mere cents

Then the Reid said “Let’s vote!”
On a bill few had read
Affecting the Americans
Whose paychecks would be bled

And what happened then?
Well in America they say
That our taxes went up
And grew three sizes that day!
While at the same time, our healthcare declined
But the Reid didn’t care, he had achieved his gain
And he…
He himself…
The Reid voted to cause us all pain.

Snowe said the Christmas deadline imposed by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats for voting on the Senate measure is unacceptable and fails to allow for the continued analysis and change she feels is necessary to protect consumers, taxpayers and the shaky business sector. In particular, she said, she cannot accept a 400-page amendment filed late last week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that, because of the process of adhering to the Christmas deadline, is not subject to debate or amendment.

She said she does not discount the urgency of the health care reform issue or the broad support in Maine for change.

“I recognize the imperative of accomplishing this reform,” she said. “But in the final analysis, I will be accountable for the outcome of this legislation.”

I’m not sure why Snowe is so shocked by this. Last week, President Obama made his views on when he expected the bill quite clear. As is the case with many subjects, Obama declared back in September that the time for “bickering” and “games” was over and that it was the “season for action.” And remember, this is a president who tells his critics to “get out of the way.” With leaders like this, the Democrats would never act in bad faith, right?

Snowe pulled the switch that brought this monster to life, and it looks like she’s finally begun to realize it isn’t as friendly as she created it to be.

Lawmakers also received sobering news from administrators of the state’s Dirigo health insurance program.

Earlier this year, lawmakers extended Dirigo Health a $25 million loan to help cover costs while the program worked toward self-sufficiency. Karynlee Harrington, executive director at Dirigo Health, told the committee Thursday that the program does not expect to be able to pay back the full $25 million by June 30, as required.

“We are making progress. We have a positive cash balance,” Harrington said. While the program expects to be self-sufficient sometime in fiscal year 2011, which begins July 1, it will not likely happen before then, she said.

2011? Just over a year? Sounds great, until you consider that the program was supposed to be paying for itself a long time ago. Read this report from the Maine Heritage Policy Center (pdf) for a thorough examination of just how badly Maine’s attempt at a health care public option has failed. Some highlights:

–Dirigo Health has cost taxpayers $155 million over five years in subsidies and administrative costs alone.
–Today, DirigoChoice covers just 3,400 uninsured (less than 3 percent of Maine’s uninsured population).
–Incredibly, the DirigoChoice premiums for sole proprietors and individuals have skyrocketed 74% in 4 years. (4 times faster than the Maine State Employees health plan (17%) and 7 times faster than inflation (10%)).

The program that was supposed to pay for itself through cost savings in healthcare (sound familiar?) still depends almost entirely on taxpayer dollars for its continued existence. At present, Maine taxpayers pay 61.9% of the program’s total costs, an increase from previous years.

It’s an expensive failure and now Democrats want to take it nationwide. Like Ed said back in August, call your Congressional representatives and tell them to Remember the Maine.

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
– Luke 23:39-43

These verses are often cited to show the depth of Jesus’ mercy. What’s interesting is that they also show His respect for justice. Jesus did not offer to remove this man from his punishment – He only said He would see the criminal in Paradise, after the man had paid the ultimate price for his crime.

When I consider that Mike Huckabee’s tendency as governor was to show mercy to certain criminals in Arkansas, I think of the two criminals crucified with Jesus. Although one of them came to repentance, he was not given a reprieve from his secular punishment. He died at the hands of the state for his crime, and both he and Jesus accepted that as fitting judgment at the hands of men.

While governor of Arkansas, Huckabee granted 1,023 commutations and pardons in 10 years, twice as many as his three predecessors combined. Arkansas prosecutors have said that if a pastor was involved, Huckabee was likely to grant clemency. What bothers me about Huckabee’s record is that there is a difference between spiritual redemption and secular justice. People may be forgiven by God for their sins, but that doesn’t mean society should overlook their crimes. Huckabee’s seeming inability to differentiate between the two is troubling.

Huckabee’s overuse of his clemency power displayed a fundamental disrespect for those who worked to bring criminals to justice and to the families affected by the criminals he pardoned with such frequency. Prosecutors in that state asked Huckabee time and time again to take more care in his use of the pardon/commutation power and he did not, and even threatened to make it harder for them to make plea agreements with defendants. His actions and his response to criticism suggest that he put his own value system above his responsibilities as governor to use his executive power with discretion and take the opinions of those in the judicial system under appropriate consideration

Unfortunately, when he was questioned, Huckabee did not show respect for those tasked with judging criminals. The mocking tone he allowed his staff to communicate to a fellow public servant displays contempt for those who questioned his judgment, which is rather unbecoming of a man who fashioned himself a ‘Christian Leader’ during last year’s presidential campaign. Huckabee’s actions as governor, and especially the ‘LOL letter,’ display more hubris than humility. Ultimately, a leader is responsible for the actions of his or her subordinates. That Huckabee allowed such a letter to be sent doesn’t speak well of his political character.

Huckabee’s clemency record on its own would have been enough to grievously wound his political career. His reaction to those who have criticized it, both now and in the past, display a temperament and lack of judgment that have not mixed well with political power in the past, and for that reason Huckabee should be denied access to it in the future.

Blodgett, an Augusta Democrat, arranged for the father of one of the students killed at Columbine High School in Colorado to testify in support of her bill to require private sellers at gun shows to conduct background checks of potential buyers.

But by the time the committee voted, Blodgett had even lost the support of several lawmakers who had signed on as co-sponsors. The unanimous vote against her bill dismayed Blodgett.

“After the vote, I had said that I would never do that again, but I will,” Blodgett said recently.

Blodgett’s first mistake was violating a cardinal rule of Maine politics: don’t rely on arguments made by people “from away.” Her second was trying to create a law that the state simply doesn’t need. As the article notes, the argument that firearms are a threat to public safety don’t work well in a state where the rate of firearm ownership is high and crime is low.

According to FBI crime statistics, there were 1,547 violent crimes committed in the state last year, and 31 of them were murders. That’s 117 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, or 2.4 murders per 100,000 and random crime is virtually non-existent. Of the 2008 murders, 12 were committed with a firearm. (pdf link). Maine is the sort of state where many people leave their cars and homes unlocked without fear. It’s hard for groups like the Brady Campaign to make the argument that the state needs new firearms laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals when there are so few criminals. The gun control advocates, however, aren’t ones to allow facts to get in the way of their agenda:

A major reason for the low score is Maine policymakers’ resistance to closing the “gun show loophole,” which critics contend feeds the black market and enables convicted felons to purchase firearms from private sellers without background checks. All dealers must perform background checks on potential buyers, whether selling at their store or at a gun show.

“We certainly don’t want to disrupt that hunting culture in Maine,” said Chad Ramsey, senior associate director at the Brady Campaign. “But it only takes a few minutes to get a background check conducted, and it could save lives.”

Of course, many gun shows in Maine only allow licensed dealers to sell and forbid private sales on the premises. When I purchased a handgun at a show a few years ago, a background check was performed on the spot. The only “loophole” in Maine is private sales, of which there are many.

The push for new gun control laws in Maine makes the agenda of groups like the Brady Campaign very clear – their push for gun control laws is rooted in ideology, not state need. They simply do not seem to care that their laws are not needed or wanted, but they keep working to pass them, as the quote from Rep. Blodgett makes clear. This is not about increasing public safety. It’s about increasing state control over a right guaranteed by both the US Constitution and the Maine Constitution, which states that “Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned.” In the headline, I called Maine an inconvenient state. Clearly, to gun-control advocates, that is the case. The continued push for gun control measures is bothersome because it displays an arrogance on the part of those who are doing it ‘for our own good.’ It also shows just how dishonest the Brady Campaign is willing to be to get their way.

Their newest argument for gun laws is to simply ignore the fact that Maine is a safe state that is full of guns and bemoan our bad influence.

The Brady Campaign, the national organization Stop Handgun Violence and Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence all contend that Maine’s lax regulations help feed the illegal gun trade — and, therefore, violent crime — in Massachusetts and other states.

…In 2008, Maine supplied 11 percent of the nearly 900 recovered guns in Massachusetts that were traced back to a specific state outside of Massachusetts, according to the report from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That was more than any other state.

So because 90 or so guns were found in Massachusetts, we need to amend our laws to close that darned “gun show loophole.”

There’s one major problem with that argument. Criminals don’t purchase guns from gun shows.

Hohenwarter pointed out that prisoners in state correctional facilities reported obtaining firearms from gun shows just 0.7 percent of the time, according to the last U.S. Department of Justice survey of the topic, conducted in 1997. Roughly 80 percent said they obtained their guns from friends and family or from the black market.

Again, Maine defeats the arguments of gun owners by simply existing. A lot of guns are sold in Maine. That such a small percentage have been found in the hands of criminals seems to indicate that most who purchase firearms here abide by the laws of their state.

Maine is not paradise. Guns are used in the commission of crimes. But they are not used often enough to warrant restriction on their ownership to law-abiding citizens. The next time you hear someone claim the Brady Campaign and other organizations are simply seeking common-sense gun laws to protect the public, point to their actions in Maine.

And the result?

PORTLAND, Maine — Voters on Tuesday repealed the state’s same sex marriage law after an emotionally charged campaign that drew large numbers to the polls and focused national attention on Maine.

With 87 percent of precincts reporting, the campaign to overturn Maine’s same-sex marriage law won with 53 percent of the vote vs. 47 percent opposed to Question 1, according to unofficial results compiled by the Bangor Daily News.

According to those unofficial results, gay marriage proponents only won 3 of the state’s 16 counties. In two of those counties, the pro-gay marriage side won by only one point. To show how thoroughly the law was rejected by this liberal state, here are the 2008 presidential vote results, by county:

Using the same color scheme, with red being “Yes” and blue, “No,” here are the 2009 results for question one:

The measure lost in every corner of the state, and turnout was estimated to be over 50%. Nowhere near 2008 levels, but not a typical off-year election, either. Given Maine’s political leanings, this should have been an easy win for gay marriage. That it was the continuation of a 31-state losing streak should give supporters of gay marriage pause. Will it?

Judging by the comments of the ‘No on 1′ campaign leader last night, not so much.

The defenders of Maine’s gay marriage law — which passed the Legislature in the spring but was never allowed to take effect — acknowledged being behind, but held out hope for a bump as the final votes and absentee ballots were counted.

In a defiant speech to several hundred lingering supporters, No on 1 campaign manager Jesse Connolly pledged that his side “will not quit until we know where every single one of these votes lives.”

“We’re not short-timers; we are here for the long haul,” Connolly told the crowd, some of whom wiped away tears as he spoke. “Whether it’s just all night and into the morning, or next week or next month or next year, we will be here. We’ll be fighting, we’ll be working. We will regroup.”

Well, that’s a wonderfully creepy little piece of rhetoric, Mr. Connolly. Thanks. I’m pretty sure he’s just saying they won’t quit until every vote is counted, but his phrasing is…awkward.

Honestly, though, I don’t see how they can fight back on this one. Unlike the California vote, which added language to the state constitution, this was a simple people’s veto. Challenging this in court will be difficult, and putting the issue before the voters again would likely be counterproductive. For now, this issue is dead in the water.

What I find most interesting, based on comments at news stories and on social network sites is that yesterday, when the polls showed a narrow ‘No on 1′ win, I lived in an independent-minded, moderate state. Now it seems we’ve been transformed into a group of backwards, bigoted haters. Funny how that works.

Update – Another thought. As stevegg notes in the comments, it’s not as though Maine was overcome by a wave of conservative voters. On the same ballot, Maine voters rejected a targeted lowering of the excise tax on cars and a taxpayer bill of rights that would have limited state spending, eased access to medical marijuana, and approved more spending on roads. The gay marriage law was rejected not just by the state’s dwindling GOP voter, but by independents and Democrats.

Were she to get a viable conservative primary challenger, I would vote for that person in a heartbeat. However, I live in a state where the GOP is weak, to say the least. So until the day she is weak enough to defeat in a primary, I will continue to vote for her over the moonbats the state’s Democrat party has run against her in the past.

For the most part, Snowe is responsive to the people she represents and spends a fair amount of time in the state. So while I wasn’t surprised by her vote, I was taken aback by the reasoning behind it.

“When history calls, history calls,” said Maine Republican Olympia Snowe, whose declaration of support ended weeks of suspense and provided the only drama of a 14-9 vote in the Senate Finance Committee.

Nowhere in her statement to the committee does Snowe mention her constituents. She could have easily pointed to those in her state who have advocated for healthcare reform, but chose instead to vaingloriously wrap herself in the cloak of history-maker. Snowe’s statement and vote symbolized the arrogance that has characterized this Congress. Our so-called representatives are moving forward on this bill despite poll after poll showing growing opposition to Obamacare. If members of Congress regarded themselves as servants to the public that elected them, these polls, combined with the anger that Americans displayed during August townhall meetings, should have at minimum slowed the rush to transform our healthcare system. Ideally, widespread citizen concern should have been taken into consideration by members of Congress and the administration instead of being dismissed as the ravings of a ‘racist, wingnut fringe.’

Unfortunately, the current Senate seems to regard itself as a House of Lords, doing what they think is best for those they can’t help but look down upon. Opinion polls, phone calls, letters, and emails against this plan are ignored because in the opinion of the American Lords, the concerns of the proles are subordinate to the wisdom of the elite. The ideals of a representative republic have taken a back seat to the good intentions of those who increasingly seem to believe their role is to look out for us rather than represent our views.

Ultimately, what I find most offensive about Snowe’s statement is the inherent paternalism and ego, the suggestion that she answers not to those who elected her, but to her sense of how history will view her and her actions. Snowe was not elevated to her office by ‘history,’ but by voters like me, many of whom are skeptical of Obamacare. If Snowe runs again, I’m sure she’ll draw a great deal of support. This state is protective of its incumbents, unfortunately.

Snowe’s words display the attitude that had so many Americans protesting at town hall meetings and tea parties this past summer. The anger at government goes beyond simple policy disagreements – many of us have simply lost trust in our elected representatives because they just don’t seem to care about the opinions of those who put them in power. This is a bipartisan problem, and sadly, seems to run in cycles.

Snowe was elected to the Senate in 1994 as part of the Republican takeover of Congress. Voters at the time had lost trust in the Democrat party’s ability to lead. The Democrats had been in control for 40 years. Voters lost trust in the Republicans by 2006, after only 12 years. If present trends hold, the current trust in Democrat leadership will only last four years. The frequency of turnover is actually a good thing, as it shows an electorate increasingly intolerant of corrupt or unresponsive representation.

For that reason, if the GOP takes control of Congress next year, I hope they don’t see it as a broad conservative mandate but as a simple message – voters are tired of politicians who promise change but deliver the status quo. The first party to really understand that all voters want is for the culture of Washington to change and actually works to make those changes will be the party that keeps power for more than a few election cycles.

This isn’t about ideology, it’s about trust.

You have got to be kidding me.

When I was a journalism major in college, I read and re-read “All the President’s Men.” To me, it reinforced the ideal purpose of journalism – keeping public officials accountable to the people. Unfortunately, today’s media seems to believe they are the (Democrat) President’s men.

When was the last time you saw CNN fact-checking an anti-Republican SNL skit? What’s sad to me is not the bias, but the fact that they increasingly don’t even seem interested in hiding it anymore.

Mike Skolnick, the artist asked by the White House to coordinate the effort said in his view, part of the group’s task was “to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration.”

What’s interesting is that not a single government official on the call corrected him, or objected to his statement. It’s almost as though the president’s ‘I won/anything goes’ rhetoric has trickled down to his staff.

As Andrew Klavan points out, there are limits, and not just legal ones.

*h/t to Mere Rhetoric for suggesting a better word than propaganda.

Heckle the president during a speech? Sanction.

Who better to work for the government than someone who believed the government is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people?

Of course, Jones is furiously trying to backpedal on this one even though he signed the document calling for an investigation of the possibility that the Bush administration allowed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to occur.

And unless Obama cuts this guy loose, we’re paying Jones a six-figure salary to keep a job that is unaccountable to Congress and by extension, the American people. Good call, Barry.

This was an actual headline at MSNBC.com this evening. Amazingly enough, this is not the most gushing tribute to the late senator from Massachusetts.

So…can I imagine life without Ted Kennedy?

As a matter of fact, I can. Tonight, I will go to bed and sleep. Tomorrow, I will wake up, consume a caffeinated beverage of some sort and go to work. After work, I will go back to my house, eat dinner, spend some time with my wife and daughters, then read and/or blog before going to bed. The next morning, the cycle will start again. As hard as it may seem for those at MSNBC to believe, the chances of me thinking of Ted Kennedy in that average day are roughly 0.0%.

This may come as a shock to those in the media engaged in the deification of Kennedy, but there are likely millions of us who manage to make it through our daily routines without thinking of Ted Kennedy.

So, life without Kennedy is going to look like…well, life.

As the president and congressional Democrats continue their quest to convince the American people that a public option will help lower healthcare costs, the Wall St. Journal looks north and finds an example of that approach…lacking.

Then the state created a “public option” known as DirigoChoice. (Dirigo is the state motto, meaning “I Lead.”) This plan would compete with private plans such as Blue Cross. To entice lower income Mainers to enroll, it offered taxpayer-subsidized premiums. The plan’s original funding source was $50 million of federal stimulus money the state got in 2003. Over time, the plan was to be “paid for by savings in the health-care system.” This is precisely the promise of ObamaCare. Maine saved by squeezing payments to hospitals and physicians.

The program flew off track fast. At its peak in 2006, only about 15,000 people had enrolled in the DirigoChoice program. That number has dropped to below 10,000, according to the state’s own reporting. About two-thirds of those who enrolled already had insurance, which they dropped in favor of the public option and its subsidies. Instead of 128,000 uninsured in the program today, the actual number is just 3,400. Despite the giant expansions in Maine’s Medicaid program and the new, subsidized public choice option, the number of uninsured in the state today is only slightly lower that in 2004 when the program began.

It didn’t take long for the weaknesses of the program to make themselves evident. The ‘self-sustaining’ formulas were built upon faulty assumptions, and Maine taxpayers have been paying the price ever since. Even though the tax on insurers (euphemistically called a “savings offset payment’) was upheld by the state supreme court in 2007, the program still ran low on funds.

So to preserve Governor John Baldacci’s legacy, my insurance premiums are being taxed, and the legislature attempted to tax soda, wine and beer, which violated Baldacci’s campaign promise not to raise taxes. (Sound familiar?) Maine voters overwhelmingly rejected that tax, leaving the administration to look for other sources of revenue. One of the ideas under consideration? A $100,000 a year cap on benefits.

In addition, Maine’s bureaucrats are making it harder for hospitals to treat patients with their central planning view of the role of government.

According to the US Census bureau, Maine has a population of only 1.3 million. The Dirigo health plan insures only 9,472. This state is unable to run or find enough money to fund a program that insures only 0.7% of the state’s population. ObamaCare has many of the same provisions and funding formulas, and the president claims it will not only cover the health insurance needs of over 300 million Americans but also ‘bend the cost curve’ downward. Well, each time I get paid, money is taken out of my paycheck to fund my healthcare, Dirigo Care, Medicaid, and Medicare, so color me extremely skeptical of the administration’s claims.

Take it from an overtaxed Mainer, the idea of a public option is much better than the reality. In this case, as Maine goes should be what the rest of the nation avoids.