Bloomberg Reports on Mourdock, Makes Stuff Up About Tea Party

Interesting article in Bloomberg this week on Richard Mourdock, who is attempting to unseat Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) in next year’s Republican primary for the Senate seat. There are some interesting quotes, such as:

At this point, Lugar “has to be regarded as the underdog,” and his decision to take time off during Congress’s April recess is surprising, said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “It seems to reflect what I see as a failure to understand the environment out there, and possibly his unwillingness to see the difficult political shape that he’s in.”

With all due respect to Mr. Rothenberg, Lugar has about a gazillion dollars in his war chest, and is owed political favors from practically every organization in the state. With 16 months to play, he’s not the underdog. Yes, Mourdock has momentum right now, and has been saying all the right things to all the right people, but it’s going to be an uphill battle, regardless.

I have a couple problems with some other points in the article as well.

In a new era that stresses confrontation over compromise, Lugar is a top target of a Tea Party movement that last year ousted three-term Utah Senator Robert Bennett and fielded a winning Republican primary opponent to Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski.

No, we do not stress confrontation over compromise. We stress winning over losing. There’s a big difference. Most of the “compromises” the right has made with the left over the last 50 years have turned out to be disasters for both the country and the GOP. We have to get away from the idea that it’s ok to compromise with people who want to take the country in a totally different direction than that envisioned by the Founding Fathers (yes, I still say that, not the PC “Founders”).  If you compromise with someone going the wrong direction, you still end up going the wrong direction, just slower.

And here we see an example of the media “just makin’ stuff up”:

The Pike County results provide a glimpse of the challenge that Lugar, 79, faces from the influence of anti-government, anti-tax Tea Party supporters.

The Tea Partiers are not anarchists. They are not anti-government. They are pro federal government and pro republic. Over the last two hundred years, we’ve forgotten what the words “federal government” mean and have re-defined them to mean this large monstrosity out of Washington, D.C.

Federal means that the states were to be a federation of independently self ruled entities. These entities gave up limited power to a central government in order to become “united states”.

Republic means that we don’t vote on everything, we vote on people to represent us. True democracy results in mob rule, something that liberals want, but something that every thinking person should fear.

So, Tea Partiers want rule that is close to home, and don’t believe “that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves”.

And Tea Partiers are not anti-tax either. TEA stands for “Taxed Enough Already”. Tea Partiers understand the need for taxation, but also understand when we’ve reached the point of excessive taxation. Tea Partiers face fiscal reality. They know that we can’t tax our way out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. We can only grow our way out of it, and even then, only if we face the facts that our government growth is unsustainable.

Card Check-The Chicago Way

Well, President Barack Obama couldn’t get his anti-democracy card check bill passed through congress, so as is his wont lately, he’s going through executive fiat. This time he’s using his thugs at the NLRB to do his dirty work for him.

What’s card check? Card check is the union organizer’s dream. It allows unions to be formed without a secret ballot. The thugs want this so they know exactly who is for and who is against the unionization so they can target those against it.

Well, Obama needs to keep his union leadership friends happy so they’ll keep sending him money. So, using the heavy handed politics he learned in Chicago, he’s having NLRB sue states who have enacted anti-card check legislation.

According to the Times, the NLRB put Arizona and South Dakota on notice in a letter sent Friday, warning that it planned to sue the states because they passed amendments prohibiting unionization through "card check."

If he and the NLRB think they can get away with these kinds of heavy handed politics in his first term, just imagine the things they’ll attempt in his second term, when he won’t be worried about getting re-elected.

Peaceful Green Hippies Target Trump

Oh no. I said the word “target” in the title. Here come the thought police. Unfortunately, I’m not being figurative this time, but literal.

As I keep saying, this is the left. Not the fringe, but the mainstream left. This is what we’re fighting against.

The Obligatory “Obama Releases Birth Certificate” Post

I said just last week, in my post on birtherism that:

I'm saying the answer isn't because he can't, but because it serves him better not to. Now he gets to use it as a distraction, to keep us from talking about the serious issues of the day, the ones that are going to make him a one term President.

Well, now that he has, what do I think?

I think he’s still following Alinsky, just a different part. Looking at the rules again:

5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

You think the MSM wasn’t ridiculing birthers before? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

But, even better for Obama, he gets some more mileage out of the distraction. Every single left and right wing commenter out there is talking about this today. Even me. Sadly.

In case no one remembers…

We still have ridiculously high unemployment, crushing debt, inflation, high gas prices, three wars, and a government that wants us to be subjects, not citizens.

Can we focus on the issues?

Please?

Atlas Shrugged-Again

I mentioned in my Atlas Shrugged movie review that while I’d purchased the book some years ago, that I’d never gotten around to reading it.

Well, I’ve now finished Part I of the book, the part that matches the movie. And I can say now that the movie does a pretty good job of following the book. There’s a lot of backstory left out, but that’s hardly surprising. The most significant of these is the tangled history between Dagny and Francisco d'Anconia (a character I neglected to mention in my review). This is barely hinted at in the book.

One of the things I found interesting in both the book and the movie is how much the characters, both protagonist and antagonist, seem to be almost caricatures. They seem to be cardboard representations of the worst things that both sides say about them. Jim Traggart for example, is far more worried about social justice than his own company. While Dagny and Hank are described often as not caring about anything, something they freely admit and agree with.

However, the book gives all of these characters more depth as the story moves forward. In the movie, they still seem two dimensional, with the possible exception of our two heroes.

I have two minor criticisms of the book. One, the movie does a better job with the thriller/suspense side of things, making you wonder early on if there’s something sinister behind the disappearance of the real movers and shakers.  The second criticism I have deals with Rand’s verbosity. I know I can drone on and on and on at time. Read some of my old posts if you don’t believe me. But I swear she must have been paid by the word. There are whole pages that consist of just one or two paragraphs, that say absolutely nothing.

In spite of these two things, I am looking forward to moving on to Part II. I have enjoyed it immensely so far.

Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball For 2012

For those who don’t know who Larry Sabato is, he is the election forecaster that the pundits and political advisors turn to for analysis of the battlegrounds. Based on his words, the RNC and DNC will shift their monies, and CBS, NBC, et al. will shift their travel plans.

Here’s his first map for for the Presidency in 2012. There is good news and bad news for the GOP.

The bad news for the GOP is that counting leaners, the Dems lead 247 to 180. That means the GOP will have to be nearly perfect in the tossup states to take the Presidency.

The good news is that election outcomes aren’t always about offense, they’re also about defense. Consider the leaner states as places where the parties will have to play defense. The GOP only has one state, MO. The Dems have four, NM, MI, PA, and WI. That affects allocation of funds. The GOP will be able to concentrate a bit more on offense than the Dems. Not much, though. If this map doesn’t improve, it’s hard to see a Republican in the White House in 2013.

This blog will continue to watch Sabato as well as a couple others and will be updating more frequently as the date of doom approaches.