Centrists

This was a very good post in Best of the Web yesterday.

The problem is that Democratic centrists rolled over. Either they yielded their centrist principles in the face of progressive intimidation, or those principles didn’t amount to much to begin with. The most dramatic illustration of this point is the list of moderate Democrats in the Senate: Evan Bayh, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Jim Webb. Every one of them voted for ObamaCare. Any one of them alone could have put a stop to ObamaCare simply by casting a vote against cloture. Several of them voted “yes” in exchange for special privileges for their states, making quite clear that theirs was not a principled stand.

Had a single Senate Democrat said “no” to ObamaCare–or had a big enough bloc in the House resisted Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s strong-arming–Scott Brown would have been superfluous, and Massachusetts voters might well have stayed true to type and chosen a Democrat.

Expecting progressives to cast aside ideology for the sake of the party is silly. If they did that, they’d be partisans, not ideologues. Democratic centrists, by their behavior over the past year, have shown themselves to be partisans more than ideologues, and that is what made them an ineffective check against the ideological excess that is damaging their party.

The Republican Party is not without its flaws, but the Democratic Party would be much worse without it–and vice versa.

A few links

1. John Brennan, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, is apparently a whiner.
Concerning complaints about Mutallab’s “interrogation”.

This administration’s efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond — far more than in 2008.

Neener, neener. We’re way tougher than Bush ever was.

2. A western man’s skeleton was found in Mongolia. From 2000 years ago.

3.

Pakistani Taliban confirm leader’s death: Hakimullah Mahsud was injured in a missile strike by a U.S. drone last month. He is the group’s second leader killed in six months.

Neener, neener. Or as I prefer to say….good going guys!

4. Wolves – a whole pack? In Colorado!!

Climate Change

As yet MORE errors in the IPCC climate change report come to light, (further completely unreviewed “studies” being used to further other studies. Those first studies done by college students and advocacy groups -now Defenders of Wildlife, previously World Wildlife Fund. And even science based on a commercial website advocating wave energy.) I think I’ve found my favorite quote. (in bold)

Professor Bob Watson, who chaired the IPCC before Dr Pachauri and is now chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, insisted that despite the errors there was little doubt that human-induced climate change was a reality.
But he called for changes in the way the IPCC compiles future reports.
“It is concerning that these mistakes have appeared in the IPCC report, but there is no doubt the earth’s climate is changing and the only way we can explain those changes is primarily human activity,” he said.

bwahahahahahaha Because the climate has never changed at any other time in the history of earth apparently.

The Tea Party

If Tom Tancredo is the “face” of the Tea Party movement, then the tea party movement is dead. He’s pretty certain we should have Jim Crow laws for voting.

“People who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House,” he said.

I’m pretty certain even those people should get an opinion on their elected officials Tom.

Global Warming

fyi,

I’ve gotten bored with blogs so I’m moving on to a new crop (threesources, you’ll stay) but Scott at Environmental Republican will always stay. He’s right on top of things and has a unique perspective being a Republican in an Environmental Field.

He’s been one of the first skeptics of global warming, let alone anthropomorphic global warming and today he does a well deserved strut. See his 2nd post of the day for photos in NJ after the big storm. Nice house!

HealthCare

Today in the LATimes is a story about Anthem Blue Cross raising their rates in CA for individual health policies.

(these are the policies not covered by group rates)

Today in the Washington Post is Charles Krauthammer discussing Obama’s insistence that the American people were just too confused by the health care debate to support.

Read the first story and then tell me what you think the answer is?
From what I read, the problem is
a) people who buy individual coverage are stuck…..if only there were ways to allow individuals to negotiate in a group….
b) the other big insurers in CA have also raised rates….if only people could search the whole country for an insurer
c) people with preexisting conditions can get cherry picked out…..if only there were some version of catastrophic care paid for by tax payers since we know we’ll pay for it anyway.
d) health care costs are rising dramatically…..if only malpractice insurance didn’t cost 2 arms and 2 legs…or if only doctors didn’t have to overprotect themselves from getting sued all the time

or is it all….if only we had more confusing government requirements and subsidized Medicaid in Nebraska…..

Timing

So yesterday a friend dropped by and we had a heated discussion about the current administration.

Today Keith Hennessey comes up with a list of potential responses for such friends.
And good on me, I used a ton of them.

ie

Argument: The previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program … without paying for any of it.

Response 1: Yes, we did. At the time, Congressional Democrats tried and failed to create an even more expensive new drug program without paying for it. (Mr. Obama was not in the Senate at the time.)
Response 2: This Medicare drug program is ongoing. If the President thinks it is too expensive, then he should propose to make it less expensive. If instead he thinks it should be paid for, then he should propose other spending cuts or tax increases to offset the future costs. Pending health care legislation would instead expand this expensive benefit and pay for the expansion, but would do nothing about paying for the ongoing base costs to which the President is objecting. The past six years of deficit spending from this benefit is beyond President Obama’s control. The future spending is not. He could do this through reconciliation with 51 votes in the Senate.

Thanks Keith!
Dealing with Unreasonable Friends? Go to www.keith hennessey.com and chew them up and spit them out.

One of my friends flailing arguments included “all government is crooked”. gnash, gnash
Today Gateway Pundit has a short video of someone who looks pretty principled to me. Senator Judd Gregg giving Peter Orszag the whatfor.

[tangent: this friend of course has BDS. I can only laugh at humanity. The biggest reason I love President Bush is because he's a principled person who did what he thought was right. That's the one thing this friend says is missing in government - yet when it was in front of him for 8 years he never saw it. ]

Budgeting

While flying to Vegas is not allowed in the budget, apparently studying malaria and killing more predators (in spite of study after study showing the importance of predators) is worth your tax dollars.

Reality hits home

Scott at Environmental Republican posts on Iran’s buildup, our troop movements and how you know who is going to have to step up to the plate this time.

He has to.

The Budget

The numbers in the budget are too big for me to imagine. I just want to note that lately conversation is in the trillions while it used to be in the billions. These numbers aren’t for me to pay. In the end it will be our kids paying it. And I don’t have any.

But I am fond of my nieces and nephews. Some of whom want to work in low paying help others types of jobs.

I’m also fond of this country and more we can’t say “no” to China, the less power we have. The NYTimes even sees the problem with these deficits.

By President Obama’s own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 — years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms — they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water.

Rich Lowry has a column out on these numbers that seems worth the read.

And can I note that this budget, includes money that the administration expects to get from cap and trade. I know I’m not a deep thinker, but isn’t the POINT of cap and trade to get industry to reduce carbon output so they don’t get fined in the process of producing and NOT to fine the industry so they keep spewing out carbon??

This is like the cigarette tax to pay for healthcare. As the tax works and smokers are reduced, what happens to healthdcare?