True feminism

Fay Voshell reminds her sisters that there are more important things for women who are genuinely concerned about women's rights (as opposed as simply using women's rights as a smokescreen to advance the progressive agenda) to worry about than repealing the First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty in order to force a church to buy their birth control pills.

All over the world, women and children are being trafficked for sex; women and girls are being subjected to genital mutilation; unborn girls are the victims of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide; and women are subjected to the horrifying strictures and consequences of sharia law.  This is to say nothing of the women who are enslaved by the demeaning and destructive practice of polygamy or the women of the world who are without clean water and food for themselves and their children.

The thing is that all of those outrages against women and girls (with the exception of infant girls being killed by sex-selective abortions - but infant girls still in the womb aren't really "girls" so it doesn't matter - are taking place in other nations.  Well there is some sex-slave trafficking going on in the US but the left doesn't seem to care much about that (see ACORN Sting).


But mostly all the really bad anti-woman stuff is going on in other nations.  Female genital mutilation is mostly a North African and Egyptian custom which is linked to Islam so condemning it would involve making a judgement about another culture and that is strictly verboten to a good multiculturalist.  The same applies to criticism of sharia law.  Since radical Islam is at war with the United States it is seen as some kind of natural ally by members of the radical left - including feminists.


Most feminists (as the term is defined today rather than the past) would point to their support for the United Nations as proof that they really care about women and children getting clean water and adequate food, but a look at what the UN really does in Third World nations makes that a hard case to make.


Now on the issue of polygamy if a Mormon gains the GOP nomination then I expect that American feminists will rediscover their outrage at the concept of plural marriage so long as it can be used to tar Gov. Romney.


The truth is that modern American feminists are nothing more than a component of the progressive-left liberal establishment and they exist to serve the left-liberal agenda.  They care nothing about the real issues facing women in the world unless those issues can be twisted in some way to advance the interests of the left.


It is time that women woke up and realized this.

It didn't work

Rasmussen Reports:

For the third consecutive day, Mitt Romney leads President Obama by five points in a hypothetical 2012 matchup. It is still, however, too early to tell if these results reflect a lasting change in the race or are merely statistical noise. Today's numbers show Romney at 48%, Obama at 42%. That matches the largest lead Romney has ever enjoyed over the president. Matchup results are updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). 

Romney’s support among Republican voters has moved up to 83%, just about matching the president’s 84% support among Democrats. However, only six percent (6%) of GOP voters would vote for Obama if Romney is the nominee. Twice as many Democrats (12%) would cross party lines to vote for Romney. The former governor of Massachusetts also has an eight-point advantage among unaffiliated voters.  

If Rick Santorum is the Republican nominee, he is up by one point over the president, 45% to 44%. He receives 77% support from Republican voters and is up three among unaffiliateds. Santorum and Romney are the only Republican candidates to lead the president more than one time in the polls. See tracking history  for Obama vs. all four Republican candidates. 

The Democrats understand that B. Hussein Obama will be almost impossible to reelect and so have been desperately attempting to find some way of distracting voters from his dismal performance as president.

Creating a false controversy over the issue of contraception was a part of that strategy and it seems to have if not totally backfired to at least have accomplished nothing in their favor.

To start with too much information about the real Sandra Fluke - the 30-year-old professional left-wing activist who deliberately targeted Georgetown rather than the 22-year-old financially disadvantaged law student who only wanted the best education she could get - made it out to the public too quickly for the left's party line narrative to take hold with anyone not already suffering from brain damage from overdosing on progressive Kool-Aid.

In a nation in which a large majority of the population still attend weekly services in church or synagog the attempt to force a religious institution to violate its sacred teaching by providing birth control pills to its students was bound, if I may be permitted a small vulgarism, to go over like the proverbial fart in church.

The truth is that Sandra Fluke is far worse than a slut or prostitute.  Sexually promiscuous women, whether they take money or not, only harm themselves and possibly those who voluntarily chose to sleep with them.  Ms. Fluke, on the other hand, is a parasite, a societal cancer who demands that her fellow citizens be forced to subsidize her lifestyle.  She is the moral equivalent of a tapeworm or tick.

While outrage at Ms. Fluke has understandably been focused at her insistence that the First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty be repealed in order to finance her desire for consequence-free sexual activity it is just as outrageous that she would demand that anyone be forced to provide for any of her wants or needs.

And that is exactly what she is doing.  She wishes for the federal government to use its coercive power to force her University (which happens to be a ministry of the Roman Catholic Church) to provide her with a product or service against its will.  She wishes to do this because she believes that she has a "right" to have her needs, real or perceived, met at the expense of other people.

Ms. Fluke and others like her believe that they are entitled to the fruit of other peoples' labor.  Just like an antebellum planter believed that he was entitled to live in luxury from the labor of those he presumed to own as slaves.

Our modern society rightly regards the old form of slavery practiced before the Civil War to be evil but somehow holds that those who resist having their property confiscated and redistributed to others today are somehow greedy and selfish. 

Those who demand that others be presented the bill for their wants and needs (whatever they might be) have no more moral right to call those who resent being forced to become their personal ATM greedy or selfish than Simon LeGree would have had in calling his slaves selfish for not voluntarily going out into the fields and picking his cotton.

Our society cannot be rescued from disaster until that attitude of entitlement at the expense of others is seen to be as morally indefensible, as selfish and cruel as the institution of chattel slavery ever was.

Like hitting a bullet with a bullet

From Israel National News:

The Iron Dome system has intercepted 90 percent of missile attacks on urban centers during the latest rocket bombardment from Gaza.

The expensive systems were inaugurated last year amid controversy over its worth. A primitive Kassam rocket costs terrorists only a few hundred dollars while each Iron Dome anti-missile missile costs $50,000.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated Saturday night, “We will continue to improve home front defense including by means of additional Iron Dome systems, the effectiveness of which was shown again over the weekend."

The Iron Dome system intercepted about 90 percent of the rockets fired at Be’er Sheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon, including three on Sunday morning.

Despite the rocket barrage, Israel kept open the Erez Crossing for passengers and employees of international organizations operating in Gaza. Kerem Shalom was open for the delivery of 200 truckloads to Gaza residents.

Its deployment this past weekend appears to have defeated Hamas, at least for the time being. The terrorist organization has been talking with the new regime in Egypt for another ceasefire after failing to inflict mass casualties or property damage on Israel. . .

Remember how Ronald Reagan was mocked for suggesting that a missile defense system was possible?

More good news amid the gloom

From Fox 31 in Denver:

DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court has struck down a gun ban by the University of Colorado Board of Regents that had prevented students from carrying concealed handguns on campus.

The court sided with opponents of that ban who argued that the ban is illegal because it was never approved by the state legislature.

The Concealed Carry Act, passed in 2003, prohibits local governments from limiting concealed carry rights with a few exceptions: K-12 schools, places where guns are banned by federal law, public buildings with metal detectors and private property.

College campuses were not accepted under the law.

The fact is that anyone who is lawfully armed should be able to take his gun anywhere he or she has a legal right to be.

Remember Dr. Liviu Librescu, the hero teacher at Virginia Tech who blocked the door to his clasroom with his own body so that his students could escape through the windows the morning that an insane gunman was running wild through the VT campus.  A campus that had been turned into a disarmed victim zone by laws preventing lawfully armed students and faculty from carrying firearms. 

Would it not have been infinitely better if Dr. Librescu and some of his students had been armed that day and could have defended themselves?

Cosmic justice

From The Daily Caller:

On Saturday, Carbonite CEO David Friend released a statement on his company’s website declaring that Carbonite had decided to “withdraw” advertising from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show in the wake of his controversial remarks involving Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke because it will “ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse”:

Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.

However, it hasn’t done much to contribute to his company’s stock price. Since the market opened on Monday through its close today, Carbonite stock (NASDAQ:CARB) has plummeted nearly 12 percent, outpacing the drop of the NASDAQ index in that same time period by nine-and-a-half points. It was also one of the biggest decliners on the NASDAQ on Tuesday.

Pissing off Rush's devoted audience of 20 million plus fans is not a good business decision.

And did you check out Carbonite CEO David Friend's statement about how "courageous and well-intentioned" Ms. Fluke was?  This from a man with two daughters her age. 

I don't have children but if I did have a daughter and she took it upon herself to appear before the United States Congress - on national TV, no less - and whine that the Church ought to be forced to finance her sexual escapades I seriously think I would have to commit suicide as penance for bringing such a wretched and debased creature into the world.

Let us hope that Carbonite, Sleep Number and the rest of the craven capitalists who have decided to pander to the left by dropping their sponsorship of the Rush Limbaugh Show pay a heavy price in lost business.

And let us support Life Lock for hanging in for Rush and supporting our First Amendment rights.

Rush under attack

Some left-wing websites are pushing petitions to get Rush Limbaugh's advertizes to drop his show over the flap concerning the Georgetown University slattern who demanded that her college, a Roman Catholic institution, be forced by the government to provide her and other women of similar moral degradation free contraceptives.  This despite the fact that the Roman Catholic Church holds the use of artificial contraceptives to be contrary to the will of God.

I will not sign such a petition.  However I will give a respectful hearing to anyone urging me to sign one IF and only IF they can show me a copy of a similar petition directed against Bill Maher when he called Sarah Palin a cunt.  Or against those who advanced the baseless rumor that Todd Palin raped at least one of his daughters.  Or against MSNBC host Ed Schultz for calling Laura Ingram a slut.  Or against the DailyKos for allowing posters to routinely refer to Michelle Malkin an "Asian whore".

What I am doing is writing ProFlowers a note telling them that I will no longer use their services (they are the only Rush advertiser that I patronized).

I would urge anyone who values the First Amendment to do the same because this is nothing but an effort to silence an effective voice speaking in defense of this nation's founding principles.

Some good news among the gloom

From CBS:

BALTIMORE (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that Maryland’s handgun permit law is unconstitutional.

In an opinion filed Monday, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg says a requirement that residents show a “good and substantial reason” to carry a handgun infringes their Second Amendment right to bear arms. He says it isn’t sufficiently tailored to the state’s public safety interests.

Plaintiff Raymond Woollard was denied a renewal of his permit in 2009 because he could not show he had been subject to “threats occurring beyond his residence.” Woollard obtained the permit after fighting with an intruder in his Hampstead home in 2002.

The lawsuit, which names the state police superintendent and members of the Handgun Permit Review Board, was also filed on behalf of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation.

Maryland is a blue state.  In fact it is the home state of our esteemed Vice President, Joe "halfwit" Biden. 

That they are being held to the constitution on the manner of firearms law is a sign of how much progress had been made in the field of Second Amendment law.

Andrew Breitbart RIP

When I heard of Mr. Breitbart's passing I was on the road in another state listening to Glen Beck on the radio.  I didn't want to believe that someone who had accomplished so much to further the conservative cause could have left us at such a young age.

But we must face facts, however unpleasant.

Andrew Breitbart was a giant in conservative media.  His achievements are too numerous to list however the way in which he worked with James O'Keefe to publicist the way in which ACORN was willing to work with a pimp to set up a sex slave operation involving thirteen-year-old illegal alien girls has to be his magnum opus.

Like a great many people my first thought upon hearing of his death was to wonder if George Soros had an alibi for the time.  But it seems that it was natural causes.  Of course an autopsy is being performed and if Soros can be nailed for it he will be.

Mr. Breitbart will be keenly missed, however his work at Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Peace, Big Journalism and Breitbart.com and BreitbartTV will assuredly go on.

Get ready for the post-Romney campaign

Reuters has taken notice of the fact that Rick Santorum is currently leading Mitt Romney in Michigan, Romney's home state and a state that elected his father governor.  Overall the article is an attempt to lower morale among Republican voters by beating the "brokered convention" drum.  The idea is that Santorum is such a weak candidate that if he gets the nomination the GOP establishment insiders will have to go behind closed doors in the proverbial smoke filled room and chose another candidate to unite the party and give it a chance to beat Obama.

Of course if the GOP establishment insiders have their way they would choose another even more "moderate" RINO in the John McCain/Bob Dole/Mitt Romney mold. 

The truth is that Santorum is handling the social conservative issues very well.  He is standing up for his beliefs but making clear that he does not wish to impose his Roman Catholic theological views upon the nation as a whole.  He has then forcefully pointed out the mainstream media's hypocrisy in questioning him closely about remarks made by a supporter with no connection to the Santorum campaign while giving Obama a complete pass on his association with a vicious hate-filled antisemitic racist "pastor" in whose church Obama sat for 20 years - even letting the unhinged purveyor of hatred baptize his two daughters.

And then he turns the discussion back to the central issue of this campaign.  Barack Obama's abject failures as a president.  To our economy with its persistently high unemployment (if the unemployment figure was calculated today with the same formula that was used on the day Obama was sworn in the unemployment rate would be over 11%) and anemic growth.  Every time the MSM homunculus tries to drag Santorum back to the issue of contraception he is only reinforcing to every member of the audience who is not already a batshit crazy MSNBC viewer the fact that the media is consciously running interference for Obama.  That they are deliberately attempting to deflect the public's attention away from Obama's failure as president an onto a completely irrelevant area.  Irrelevant not because birth control is not important to many women but irrelevant because no one - not even the Pope - is trying to outlaw it.

Of course we can't count Romney out yet.  He has a huge amount of money and a well organized campaign (after all he's been running for president for over 5 years).  And a loss in Michigan would be bad for him but not the total disaster that Reuters seems to think it would be:

"It's hard for me to see how Romney rights the ship if he loses Michigan," said Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak. "There is no level of spin that can overcome that disaster."

 The truth is that Ann Coulter, who is risking the good will she has built up with conservatives by becoming little more than a Romney shill, has already begun distributing the Romney loses Michigan spin.  As a guest on the Glen Beck show Miss Ann said that a loss in Michigan would come as no surprise because Romney opposed the government bailout of the auto companies.  Clearly the Romney campaign is planning to spin a potential loss in Michigan as proof that Romney is too a conservative because the UAW doesn't like him.


That the Romney campaign is already coordinating an effort to prepare for a loss in Michigan with Coulter, its most visible surrogate , indicates that their internal polling is telling them that Michigan may well be out of their grasp.

Why not Rick?

Michael Medved tells us that Mitt Romney hasn't changed in four years, but that the Republican base has - and not for the better:

On no significant issue has Romney moved to the left or to the center over the last four years; his platform of 2012 offers a program of conservative reform far bolder and more substantive than any ideas he put forward in 2008.

Mitt’s precise problem came into focus for me with an email from an angry listener to my radio show who upbraided me for my open support of Romney as the most electable candidate against Obama. “We remember what you did to us last time, and we won’t let you get away with it again!” she wrote. “This time you’re trying to ram the RINO, Romney, down our throats and last time it was McCain. It was because of people like you that we got stuck with McCain, when we could have had a real conservative who would have beaten Obama!”

And who would have been that “real conservative” back in the distant days of 2008?

None other than … Mitt Romney, the “conservative’s conservative ” eagerly endorsed by Sen. Jim DeMint and nearly all of my talk-radio colleagues, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, and many more.

That Romney no longer counts as a “real conservative” doesn’t reflect any ideological shifts on his part, but it does suggest a significant movement of the entire GOP toward the enraged and indignant right. The far lower turnouts in Florida, Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri all indicate that this tectonic movement hardly counts as a positive development for the Republican Party. Healthy political organizations attract more participants than ever before; troubled, self-destructive movements drive out people who’ve taken part in the past.
Let's help Mr. Medved out.  Back in 2008 Mitt Romney was the only viable alternative to John McCain.  McCain.  McCain, for those of you who may have only come out of a long term coma during the last three years, is the black-hearted Judas Iscariot of the GOP who has built his career on being the mainstream media's favorite Republican. 

McCain has earned the love and adoration of the MSM by never hesitating to go onto television and trash his fellow Republicans and conservative policies such as tax cuts.  McCain is the GOP's most eager "isle crosser" ever willing to abandon his party to make common cause with the left to advance the left's agenda to the detriment of the Republican Party, the conservative movement and (most importantly) the USA.

Back in 2008 many conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Lemuel Calhoon begged Republican primary voters to chose Romney over McCain because compared to McCain and only compared to McCain Romney was the conservative alternative.

Romney as president was the lesser evil than McCain as president.  That was it; 75-80% of Romney's support last time around was based on absolutely nothing more than the revulsion that genuine conservatives felt over the utterly detestable John McCain.

McCain isn't on the ticket this time around.

This time around there is an actual conservative in the race which leaves Romney occupying the McCain place in 2012.  This doesn't mean that Romney is as bad as McCain was for he is not.  What it meas is that while we conservatives have a genuine conservative in the race we have no reason to back a Northeastern moderate to liberal RINO who has a proven track record of saying whatever he has to say to get elected.

Mr. Medved says that Rick Santorum will be caricatured as and angry one-dimensional social conservative and that will sink any hope he has of being elected.

Mr. Medved must be aware that Mitt Romney is being caricatured as a "vulture capitalist" who has no greater pleasure in life than firing people, turning them out of their jobs so that they lose their homes and are driven out into howling blizzards clutching their emaciated infants which they have forced to wrap in filthy rags retrieved from the gutter to keep them from freezing.  While Tiny Tim limps along behind without even his crutch for support because Ebenezer Romney seized it in partial payment of his father's debt.

Of course this is not the real Mitt Romney, who gives millions of dollars to charity, and Mr. Medved knows that Romney's campaign should be able to deal with the issue easily. Just as the angry single issue Santorum is a caricature which Mr. Medved should also know that the Santorum campaign should be able to overcome with little difficulty.

Unless, of course, Mr. Medved actually believes the caricature of Mr. Santorum.  This is possible.  Only someone who is severely out of touch with reality could confuse the very different circumstances of the 2012 campaign and the 2008 campaign.  If Mr. Medved can't understand the difference between conservatives being driven to Romney in shear desperation at the though of McCain being our nominee and those same conservatives rejecting Romney four years later when a genuine conservative is available as an alternative then he might well be incapable of looking beyond MSM spin about Santorum.

After all Michael Medved, for all the good things that could be said about him, is someone who is located in the uber-liberal left coast enclave of Seattle, Washington.  Compared to the people Mr. Medved sees on a daily basis Mitt Romney looks like a right-winger.  Just like Rudolph Guilliani and Chris Christie look right-wing to people who live in Manhattan and New Jersey.

This brings us to an article written by the great Chuck Norris in which he explains why he chose to support Newt Gingrich over Rick Santorum:

In 2008 -- when my wife, Gena, and I were on the campaign trail backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president -- former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania was fighting to get former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney elected. (Go to http://bit.ly/zEIaPw to hear how Santorum passionately endorsed and elevated Mitt in his bid for the Oval Office.)

Just three years ago, in his interview with radio host and conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, Santorum also emphatically told millions of listening Americans, "If you're a conservative ... if you're a Republican ... there is only one place to go right now, and that's Mitt Romney."

Why an alleged conservative would fight for the flip-flopping Massachusetts moderate on the presidential campaign trail -- especially in light of the fact that Huckabee and even McCain were running then, both of whom had much clearer conservative records -- I will never know.

Mr. Norris is angry at Mr. Santorum for backing Romney as the alternative to McCain in 2008 rather than jumping on the Huckabee bandwagon.

Those of you who red this blog in 2008 might remember that my nickname for Huckabee was Elmer Gantry.  I have seen nothing from this slimy huckster in the last 3 years to cause me to change my opinion of him.

All you really need to know about Huckabee, who once styled himself a minister of God, is his reason for supporting Romney now even though he was furious with Romnny in 2008 for running very negative (and Huchabee says deceptive) ads about him.  Huckabee says that that was then and this is not.  He isn't running against Romney this time around and Romney isn't lying about him now.

So in "pastor" Huckabee's world it is just fine to lie about anyone but him.

So much for Mike Huckabee's "integrity".

And so much for Chuck Norris' good judgement when it comes to picking candidates.

Tonight's Music

Florence + The Machine, Bedroom Hymns

Republican voters redeem themselves

(Reuters) - Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum claimed a surge of momentum and fundraising on Wednesday, a day after his shocking sweep of nominating contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri that dealt a blow to front-runner Mitt Romney.

Even though Romney holds strong advantages in financing and organization, his campaign will have to refocus to fight the challenge from Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania known for his socially conservative views.

"We definitely are the campaign with the momentum, the enthusiasm on the ground," Santorum said on CNN.

For Romney, Tuesday's results included losses in two states - Colorado and Minnesota - that he won in his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign. Minnesota also became the first state where Romney did not end up in first or second place.

The startling results raised fresh doubts about whether Romney, a wealthy former private equity executive and former Massachusetts governor, can extend his support from the party establishment to win over a broad swath of Republican voters.

Santorum has now finished first in four of the first eight primaries and caucuses, after his narrow victory over Romney in Iowa's caucuses on January 3.

The former senator said his campaign was already bringing in more donations, an important consideration for a candidate who trails far behind Romney in the fund-raising race.

"We're doing very, very well raising money. I think last night we raised a quarter of a million dollars online," Santorum said.

Backed by a wealthy "Super PAC" that pays for attack advertising against rivals, Romney won three of the first five state-by-state contests to pick the Republican nominee to oppose Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

As he has before, Romney had seemed on track to win the nomination after big wins in Nevada and Florida last week. He had been expected to win easily in Colorado and did little campaigning in Minnesota and Missouri.

In Minnesota's caucuses, Santorum won with 45 percent of the vote. But the state became the first this year in which Romney did not finish first or second. Congressman Ron Paul was in second place with 27 percent and Romney was third at 17 percent.

Santorum trounced Romney by 30 percentage points in Missouri, 55 percent to 25 percent. That vote was a non-binding primary, but has symbolic value as a measure of support in a big Midwestern state.

The race was closer in Colorado where Santorum won by 5 percentage points over Romney, 40 percent to 35 percent.

This is good news indeed.  Nearly 75% of the American people want ObamaCare repealed.  I cannot remember when there was that much agreement on an issue of importance (except for opposition to amnesty for alien criminals) and the GOP simply cannot afford to give this issue away.

And whatever Ann Coulter may think to the contrary Mitt Romney is too tainted by RomneyCare to be credible to an electorate which does not really understand or care much about the concept of federalism.  They will want their president to agree with them that any government at any level should not impose something like ObamneyCare upon them.  They will want their president to be able to articulate why that kind of government mandate (whether federal, state or local) is immoral and will do great damage to the health care system of whatever polity it is inflicted upon.

Romney will not be able to do this because he still believes to this day that RomneyCare was a good thing.  The voting public is not going to be impressed with his attempt to split constitutional hairs.  What they will hear is that ObamaCare was good when I did it but bad when Obama did it.  This just won't cut it for a large enough segment of the population to cost Romney the election.

The fact that Gingrich has collapsed indicates that he is not the man to take on Obama.  If Republican voters are too turned off by has arrogance, egotism, narcissism, inconsistency, dishonesty, bluster and continual excursions to the left then what hope does he have with independents and Democrats willing to jump ship over Obama's unbelievable incompetence.

It is also significant that Santorum was able to get over 50% of the vote in one state (something that Romney has not been able to achieve this year) and that Romney was pushed back to third place in one state.

All the great majority of Republicans need to abandon Romney is the sense that someone else could win.  Santorum is looking more and more like he can win.

Romney still has enormous advantages.  He is a very rich man with the backing of a very rich superPAC.  He has an impressive organization on the ground (he has been running for president since 2007 after all) and Santorum does not have much money or much of an organization.

However Republican money will flow to a candidate that looks as though he can beat Obama in the general and Romney in the primary.  If Newt Gingrich would bow to the inevitable and withdraw from the race it would be all over for Romney (and for Obama as well).

However Gingrich will not do this.  It is simply not in his nature to place the interests of the nation ahead of his own ego gratification.  It is not in his nature to place the interests of anything ahead of his own ego.

I make no predictions.  Most states have not voted yet and nearly anything can happen but as things stand now Rick Santorum can beat Romney and then he can beat Obama.  Check out this Rasmussen poll which shows Santorum beating Obama in a head-to-head matchup because of his double digit lead among independents (who are supposed to be the key to winning the general election).

I urge anyone reading this to give Rick Santorum a close look.  I think you will be impressed.

I'm not the only one to notice

David Catron writing on The American Spectator's website asks:

Who Castrated Ann Coulter?

 

There is no conservative writer that I admire more than Ann Coulter. She's smart as hell and, more importantly, she is courageous. She has always been willing to write what other conservatives believe but don't have the guts to say in print. She has never played it safe and has certainly never adjusted her opinions for the sake of conforming to the conventional wisdom of Old Guard Republicans. In 2008, for example, she declared that she would not merely vote for, but actively campaign for Hillary Clinton if the Republican Party were foolish enough to nominate John McCain for President: "If you are looking at substance rather than if there is an R or a D after his name, manifestly, if he's our candidate, than Hillary is going to be our girl, because she's more conservative than he is."

But something has happened to Coulter. I don't have firsthand knowledge that she was kidnapped by RINO Team Six and taken to an offshore medical facility where she was forced to undergo a gruesome surgical procedure, but many of her recent columns suggest that something of the sort must have occurred. What else could explain her endorsement of Mitt Romney? Once immutable where her core convictions were concerned, she has executed a vertigo-inducing volte-face in order to promote a brazen opportunist whose positions on the big issues were the opposite of hers before he began running for President. She relentlessly trashes Republican "moderates" like McCain, yet now supports a candidate who makes the Arizona Senator look like Barry Goldwater by comparison.

It first became apparent that something awful had happened to Coulter last November, when she wrote a column asking "If Not Romney, Who? If Not Now, When?" In this surreal effusion, she claimed that the media were "pushing Newt Gingrich" and other alternatives to Romney "because they are terrified of running against him." This, as many pointed out at the time, was preposterous. The only thing that terrifies the media about Romney is that he might not get the GOP nomination. This is the man they want to run against. Unlike Coulter, the media and the Obama reelection team know that Romney can be easily portrayed as a Wall Street parasite whose only memorable "accomplishment" as the Governor of Massachusetts was the enactment of a health "reform" law that renders him unable to credibly denounce ObamaCare.

Which brings us to the latest evidence that Coulter has been somehow altered. Her inexplicable support for Romney has led her beyond being merely wrong about his chances in the general election to writing things that are either deliberately disingenuous or genuinely ignorant. The latest example of this tragic development is a column titled, "Three Cheers for RomneyCare." As its title suggests, this piece actually defends the Massachusetts "universal" health law. When I first read it, I could hardly believe such horse manure had emanated from Coulter's keyboard. The column opens with this howler: "If only the Democrats had decided to socialize the food industry or housing, RomneyCare would probably still be viewed as a massive triumph for conservative free-market principles -- as it was at the time." 

First, Coulter apparently didn't notice, but the Democrats did socialize housing, and it triggered the most dangerous financial crisis since the Great Depression. More to the point, her suggestion that Romneycare was viewed by conservatives as a free-market triumph is revisionist nonsense. Coulter attempts to support this claim by naming a couple of conservatives who initially supported the law. Somehow, though, she neglects to mention the large number who opposed it. As Merrill Matthews pointed out in Forbes, when Newt Gingrich claimed in a debate that most conservatives once supported the mandate as a way of countering HillaryCare, "That's wrong. There was, in fact, a heated battle among conservatives, with a handful pushing for the mandate and the large majority opposing it."

 

Nor does Coulter mention that one of the two conservatives she cites as supporters of Romneycare and its mandate has long since recanted. Robert Moffitt of the Heritage Foundation, whom Coulter tells us was so excited about Romneycare that he "flew to Boston for the bill signing," realized years ago that mandates were not an effective mechanism for eliminating the "free-rider" problem. Since 2008, he has vigorously advocated "far better alternatives to the individual mandate." And Moffitt's buyer's remorse is by no means an isolated case. As Matthews puts it, "[V]irtually all conservatives… have come to realize that the mandate is the gateway drug to control the health care system." Coulter, in a journalistic sin of omission worthy of the New York Times, fails to note any of this.  

 

She instead claims that conservatives dislike Romneycare "because both ObamaCare and Romneycare concern the same general topic area -- health care -- and can be nicknamed (politician's name plus "care")." To this ridiculous charge she adds the irrelevant point that mandates are constitutional when enacted by states rather than by the federal government. This is true enough, but it misses what should be an obvious point. Health care consumers are less concerned with constitutional nuances relating to federal versus state powers than with the reality that they will be forced to buy insurance whether they wish to or not. That the mandate was passed by a state legislature rather than Congress will not render voters less inclined to resent such government interference in their private transactions.

 

Coulter then reminds us that Romney has pledged to repeal Obamacare, but that promise will ring hollow once Axelrod & Co. inform the voters that the law is virtually identical, in its effect on their individual lives, to a law her candidate signed in Massachusetts. The damage this will do to Romney's credibility will be exacerbated when Obama's many friends in the "news" media point out that his reversal of position on health reform is part of a larger pattern of opportunism. They will gleefully report, for example, that Romney is also guilty of shameless flip-flops on Second Amendment rights and abortion. On the latter issue he has reversed himself no fewer than three times. When the voters see MSM "reporters" relentlessly pound him for such "evolution," they will realize that his campaign promises are meaningless.

 

 Yet Coulter, once the scourge of such malleable "moderates," has gone through some sort of transformation that has rendered her blind to Romney's cheap opportunism. And if the primary voters are foolish enough to follow her advice, they will rue the day they listened to her and the establishment Republicans with whom she has now made common cause. As Coulter herself pointed out last year when she spoke at CPAC, Barack Obama will be reelected in 2012 if the Republican Party nominates Mitt Romney for President.

 

As I said, I'm glad that I'm not the only one to notice that Miss Ann is acting strangely. 

 

Either Ann has spent so much time hanging around with media elites that she has absorbed their worldview or she simply has a crush on Mitt Romney.

 

The latter idea has logic behind it.  Women do seek to "marry up" by finding a man who is more successful than they are, who makes more money and if they are also at least as physically attractive as the woman is  so much the better.

 

In Mitt Miss Ann (or her hormones anyway) may think she has found an ideal match (but for the fact that he is happily married - but the heart wants what it wants).  He is, after all, hansom, rich and accomplished.  Sure he has displayed a certain "plasticity" on the issues (pro-life when seeking status within the Mormon church, pro-abortion when running for office in a far-left state and pro-life again when seeking national office in the GOP) but who really cares when looking at what a dashing figure he cuts, especially when contemplating his net worth.

 

Do I really believe that Miss Coulter wants to have some kind of adulterous affair with Mr. Romney or that she wishes him to leave his wife for her?  No, not really.  But subconscious desires have a powerful affect on conscious attitudes and actions.

Tonight's Music

Julie Fowlis and Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

Tonight's Music

A kick-ass song about quarks written by a hot redhead while she was drunk.

In what universe would I not love this.



The static from your arms, it is a catalyst
You're a chemical that burns, there is nothing like this
It's the purest element, but it's so volatile
An equation heaven sent, and you'll forever inject

Hydrogen in our veins, it cannot hold itself, my blood is boiling
And the pressure in our bodies, that echoes up above, it is exploding
And our particles that burn, it is all because they yearn for each other
And although we stick together, it seems that we are stranging one another

Feel it on me love, feel it on me love, feel it on me love
See it on me love, see it on me love, see it on me love

An atom to atom, oh can you feel it on me love
A pattern to pattern, oh can you see it on me love
Atom to atom oh, what's the matter with me love

Strangeness and Charm

What in the world is wrong with Ann?

Ann Coulter hearts Mitt Romney.

This is no surprise she endorsed him last time around too, choosing him over the far more conservative Fred Thompson even before it became obvious that Fred wasn't even really trying to win the nomination.

But this time around her crush on Mitt has taken on psycho-stalker overtones which have her twisting herself into intellectual pretzel shapes that extend into so many dimensions that she stands in imminent danger of collapsing into a quantum singularity.

I refer, of course, to her latest essay in which she stands up for her man by defending Romneycare.  W. James Antle takes Miss Ann to task for this on the American Spectator blog here and here.  Mr. Antle points out that Coulter is putting forward arguments which will be used by the left to argue against the repeal of ObamaCare, or ObamneyCare as it could be better termed since it is simply RomenyCare on a national scale.

The great Mark Levin also takes Miss Ann to the woodshed here (the embedded video is around 30 minutes long but well worth listening to).

Romney's supporters (I really should start calling them Romney Pod People since they are taking on the mind programed zombie aspects of Ron Paul supporters - but this is happening to Newt supporters as well) keep trying to defend Romney by pointing out that under the constitution states have the right to do things like health insurance mandates but the federal government does not.

This is true but largely irrelevant.  No one is questioning the fact that the state of Massachusetts has the legal right to enact RomneyCare.  We are simply pointing out two facts.  One is that not everything that one has the legal right to do is either good or wise.  Someone has the legal right to have "Heil Hitler" tattooed on his forehead but if he does he's an idiot.  In the same way a woman has the legal right to have five children by five different fathers, none of whom she ever bothers to marry, but if she does she is trash.

RomneyCare makes us question Rommey' judgement.  If he thought it was a good thing for Massachusetts he is a moron and most of us don't want a moron for our president.

The second fact that we want the public to consider is that it is going to be very hard for the man who is proud to this day of RomneyCare in his home state to convince an electorate that, for the most part, doesn't give a rat's ass about the concept of federalism that he is going to strive to totally repeal a national law which is little more than his own signature law expanded to a national scale.

If Ann Coulter thinks that Mitt Romney is the best man for the job then she has every right to say so.  But while she has a right to her own opinion she has no right to her own facts.  Whether you call it RomneyCare or ObamaCare it is a bad idea.  In one state or the entire nation it is a bad idea.

It doesn't matter if there was a time when some Me-Too-Republicans [1] once touted it as an alternative to Soviet style socialized medicine it was a bad idea.

Rick Santorum is correct.  We can not give this issue away by nominating the author of the state level monstrosity which was the basis for Obama's national monstrosity.  Nor can we afford to nominate Newt Gingrich who was supporting an ObamaCare style mandate up until halfway through 2011.

Ann Coulter should be ashamed of herself.  As things stand now denying Obama a second term may well require conservatives to sell out a bit of our integrity by voting for either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich as we gave up some of it four years ago by voting for McCain.  But there is a difference between selling out and selling your very soul.

[1] A Me-Too-Republican is a Republican who hears the Democrats advocate some bit of liberal/progressive insanity and runs along behind them shouting "me too, me too - just not quite as much".