Time for Republicans to Swing Right

Norm Levy in the LA TIMES reports that…

…Just 27% of Americans now approve of the way Congress is doing its job, the poll found, down from 36% in January, when Democrats assumed control of the House and the Senate.

And 63% of Americans say that the new Democratic Congress is governing in a “business as usual” manner, rather than working to bring the fundamental change that party leaders promised after November’s midterm election.

Tapscott notes the story :

This is the single most significant fact about the political landscape – a growing public disgust with both major political parties. A measure of the intensity of that disgust is seen in the crushing public disapproval of the Bush/Kennedy/McCain immigration reform bill. The more people found out about the bill, the more they disapproved of it. A titanic wave of phone calls, emails and letters descended upon the Senate.

But the more important question then is where does this public disgust lead. It’s one thing to keep beating down the Washington Establishment’s successive attempts to continue its out-of-touch handling of major public policy issues like immigration.

Amazingly, Tapscott then wonders aloud if :

the moment may be approaching for an independent, trans-partisan political party…

Um… no. Tapscott cannot possibly be on the same planet, and come to this conclusion. One wonders if his other observations are similarly inaccurate.  That said…
What it’s time for, is for the Republicans to start acting like, well, Republicans.  The undeniable change that has occurred between the time that Newt Gingrich garnered 46% approval ratings and now is that the Republicans as a party and as individuals have tilted left in dramatic fashion.  This has culminated with President Bush, offering us this monstrosity of an immigration bill. Bush himself, is not a rightist, but a centrist , often leaving left of center.  (Which is why I so often find the Democrats attempt to label him as the next Adolph Hitler so amusing…)
The extreme disgust being expressed by the American people for the current state of affairs is directly linked to how far left our politicians lean. The disgust for the Democrats, was already there.  The disgust for the Republicans, only increased in the last 20 years or so, when the two started leaning toward leftist politics.

We don’t need a party of Tapscott’s description, here… We, in fact, already have a Trans partisan political party.  In the form, ironically, of both the Democrat and Republican parties.  Both are leaning so far to the left so as to be nearly indistinguishable from each other.

Even France is swinging to the right. The American people, in majority, long to do the same thing. What needs to happen, is the Republicans need to swing back to the right.  We need to unload the RINOS like McCain, etc, and become the party of America, once again.

Are you listening, Mel Martinez?

I doubt it.

Update:

More discussion at Heading Right and Don Surber has more, too.

So does OTB

Meghan O’Rourke in Slate today, makes what has become the traditional Feminist argument against tradition… It’s all Madison Ave, it’s a sign the woman is property… a badge of slavery and whatever else… All the standard lines the socialist left uses.

This is the same crowd that’s been loudly arguing against the military establishment in general, and in particular are actions in the Middle East of late.  Granted, they argue from the standpoint of the aforementioned Frankfurt school, but that’s another linkage.

But it strikes me that the linkage that they utterly miss, is that said military establishment must be doing its job correctly, if brain dead people like O’Rourke have the luxury to sit around arguing about minutiae like diamond rings on engaged women.  They’d be running for their lives, otherwise. Or arguing about what eye shadow goes with a particular color of Burka.
(Shake of the head)

Update: Reax from Jonah Goldberg

Indeed, by the time you read this he will have already spoken there for the dedication of this memorial.

The Victims of Communism Memorial will be dedicated on Tuesday morning, June 12, 2007, in Washington, D.C. Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will give the keynote address while Rep. Dana Rohrabacher will deliver remarks. President George W. Bush has also been invited to speak. A crowd of 1,000 including Congressional leaders, members of the diplomatic corps, ethnic leaders, foreign dignitaries, and Memorial supporters, is expected to attend the historic event.

Its a good thing, this memorial. AS the WapPo says:

The world has been reluctant to acknowledge the horrors of Communism…  Now at last they will be memorialized.”

It is well.

But am I alone, in my perception of irony in having Lantos speak? I mean, I gather the logic is he lived under Communist rule. But considering his current politics and how closely they align with Marx, it’s rather like Hitler speaking at the opening of the memorial for the vitims of Nazism.

Of course none of this will make the press. If it does it’d be in below the fold on A-43, because it makes Bush look good, and Communism look bad.

Update:

Clearly, there is something of serendipity, here.  I am reminded by Bryan at Hotair, that “Mr Gorbachev, Tear down this wall” was 20 years ago, yesterday.

Update ][: Billy notes John Venlet who offers a link and a quote worthwhile to this topic as well:

“To deny that more deaths were caused by Communism than war in the 20th century is as bad as being a Holocaust denier.”

(a comment on Robert Service’s article on the persistence of the socialist ideal)

Fran makes an interesting historical point this morning:

The Frankfort School would patent the familiar “Critical Theory” which was accurately defined by a student as the “essentially destructive criticism of all the main elements of Western culture, including Christianity, capitalism, authority, the family, patriarchy, hierarchy, morality, tradition, sexual restraint, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, heredity, ethnocentrism, convention, and conservatism.” Under Critical Theory, anything emanating from the west is to be libeled and attacked over and over again while at the same time, anything emerging from a “progressive” country or group is to be applauded including the murder of over 100 million people. All blame for societal and economic ills are to be shifted to the [W]est.

These academics, escapees from Hitler’s Germany given shelter in the United States, used their new positions and influence in academia to attempt to undermine everything their host country stood for.  We’re now in our third or fourth generation of professors, social scientists and journalists trained at our major universities by adherents of this “School.” No wonder the United States is held to a different standard; no wonder that so many academics seem intent on biting the hand that feeds them.  They’re Cultural Marxists, and they’re in an intellectual war with us bourgeoisie.

Emph is his.

It fits, but I wonder how many of the adherents of the Frankfurt school, actually understand whose footsteps there following in?  One gets the impression that if they did, we wouldn’t be talking about it.

I pulled the article from Don Surber‘s paper, by design.   Kind wonder why Don skipped this one over.  Oh well.

One major difference between real folks, with common sense, like the writers here, and the media and political aristocracy is that we real folks understand that men and women are different, and accept it as simply the why the world is.

The media elite too know in their hearts that men and women are different.  Yet there is a constant and sexist bias in the way the difference is viewed.

When ever men exceed women in any particular metric, be it average hourly wage, mathmatical ability or just having a better sense of humor, the difference is attributed to male discrimination against women.

On the other toe nail, when women exceed men in a given metric, be it verbal fluency, lower imprisonment rates, fewer work related death, the difference is attributed to female superiority.   So by media logi, there are no differences bwtween the two sexes but when there are, they are either due to male discrimination or female superiority.  

Even a conservative like Kathleen Parker, is not immune from this bias:

IN the world of gender politics, death is the latest measure of parity. Not only do women outlive men, but recent research shows that they’re also being born more often than in the past.

The allegedly stronger sex, it turns out, is really the weaker and more vulnerable — from conception until death do us part.

By media logic, it is never right that men are superior to women in anything, but it is perfectly natural, and acceptable, for women to be superior to men is some things. 

Closing note:  overall demographic superiority while easy to allege is impossible to define   It certainly can not be defined and measured by a mere single metric.

H/T photo:  Daily Republic.

?

In looking around, this morning, we see that Scott Fybush notes :

WYSL (1040 Avon) marked its 20th anniversary back in January, but owner and founder Bob Savage (one of the “good guy” independent broadcasters we so admire in this column) sensibly waited until a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in June to celebrate the milestone.

…

It’s rare indeed these days to see a standalone AM survive, thrive and even grow (WYSL’s gone from a 500-watt daytimer to a big 20 kW signal in its two decades), and here’s wishing Bob, and the other owners like him in the region, continued success.

In case you don’t have a map handy, Avon is the city of license, and is located perhaps 35 miles south of the Rochester line. Even with that distance, they’ve always had solid coverage into the city, even at 500 Watts.  With 20,000 Watts they’re setting trees on fire on the south end of town.

By the way… Check out Bill Nojay’s show this afternoon, starting at 2p eastern…. it’s available via their streamer on the site, linked above.

It IS rare, but gratifying to know that such an operation survives and thrives, even today. I’ll add my voice to Scott, and give a big BBCT to Bob and his folks.  I’ll also give a big BBCT to Scott whose site should be on your reading list if you’re a fan on radio.

I don’t mean to be cute about it. OK, I do. By the standard that’s been applied to President Bush, the Democratic Congressional leadership is toast.  Hamstrung and hogtied. Sorry, insensitive choice of words. How about pistol-whipped. Bitchslapped. Lame. L-A-M-E

Jules Crittenden

So we move from one foul mouthed, Bush Derangement Syndrome Sufferer to another, on “The View”…. Jessica Shimmel at the Star is reporting..

Looks like the new host of The View will be Whoopi Goldberg!  —  “As far as everyone at ABC is concerned, she has the job,” a network insider confirms to Star.  “They have been meeting with Kathy Griffin, Rosanne Barr, Ricki Lake and Gayle King.”

Almost like they had an agenda in mind, here, eh?

I noticed Billy talking about how Richard Rorty had died…and I finally got round to refreshing my memory on this guy.

Billy’s quite right; This happened about 5 decades too late… and I regret Billy never got the  review as he mentions, finished.The NYT speaks in hushed, almost worshipful tones:

Raised in a home where “The Case for Leon Trotsky” was viewed with the same reverence as the Bible might be elsewhere,

Well, yeah, that’s about all I need to know, though of course I know far more about this guy than this, now that I’ve reminded myself.  I won’t bore you with the specifics,or, God forbid, by reposting it,  but I did manage to take a piece outta this guy back in the early 80’s on the old BBS in the op-ed section. (I was a more prolific writer back in those days).

Based on everything I’ve read about him, my guess is the intense heat will wake him up.

And before you get started, I’ll point out what I said to that mental midget Willis, last week:

That someone has died, does not immediately require me or anyone else, to leave the realm of the truth behind. The truth is far more important than the feelings of the dead, or their survivors. I’m neither inclined, nor required to lie about such a person.

And by the by, Billy, how is it you stumbled over Gitlin, anyway? I would be hard pressed to tell which was worse; Gitlin himself, or his commenters. What a magnificent twit this guy must be in real life.

The National Rifle Association has some 4.3 million dues paying members, for which it is referred to by the main stream media as the “gun lobby.”

In stark contrast, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has about 1,700 dues paying members, for which the main stream media refers to CAIR as if it were the Moslem community.  The next time you read some beathless MSM reporting on CAIR, remember that the order of magnitude between the number of writers at Bitsblog to the paid membership of CAiR is about the same as that of CAIR to the NRA.

CAIR is not a grass roots political organization, it is a paid political lobby.  The question is paid for by whom?

Update: (Bit)

Bryan at Hotair has more. 

* I notice that the approval ratings of Senator Harry Reid, have fallen to 19%.  As in, one less than 20%.  He is held unfavorably by 45%.  3% a mere 3% consider him with very favorable opinions while approximately 22% hold him with very unfavorable views. Just as a personal observation, this is approximately as popular as a nitric acid high colonic. 

Let’s consider, for just a moment what might have brought him to this lowly level. could it be the “we’ve lost the war” speech? Could possibly be the immediate gainsaying of anything the White House says?  Could it be the overt political gamesmanship that he and the rest of senate democrats have been engaging in?

The answer, of course, is “all of the above”.  If we’re to take these ratings at face value, we are forced to conclude that the American people are about rejecting what the Democrats are selling.  The question now becomes, does this give us a peek into the future of both Harry Reid, and the Democrats in general?  IMHO, I think it does.

You’ve got a feel sorry for Harry, though, between is plummeting approval ratings, and Dennis Miller ripping him a new one last night, (and yes, David did mention this earlier.. and wisely so…) it’s been kind of a hard day. For him. (snort)

Welcome to reality, Harry.

* Speaking of a lack of perception of reality, I notice the nonsense going on on the left side of the sphere, as regards the ruling from the fourth circuit this afternoon. The ruling, of course, is the incorrect one, unless yo9u happen to have a future of national suicide in mind. The constitution, after all, he’s not a mutual suicide pact.  The ruling, will likely be overturned when brought before the USSC. on that basis, I would have to say that the celebrating going on on the left, just now, while revealing of whom it is supporting our enemies…. is premature.

First of all, make no mistake that citizens are entitled to due process.  The person in question, in this case was not a citizen of the US, rather being a citizen of Qatar.  My guess is that the ruling will be overturned on that basis.

* Speaking of such, Here’s something to think about.

There is a misconception in this country about the purposes of our constitution, as regards the freedoms of citizens. So pervasive is this misconception, it is held many on both left and right.  The damage of this misconception to our society and our culture is incalculable, because based on it, both sides seem willing to hand authority over to the government that doesn’t belong there. Again, I said from both sides of the political spectrum… both left and right.

The problem can perhaps be best described as a misunderstanding of the purpose of the constitution. The constitution is a law. Like all laws, all it can do is place limits. In the case of the constitution… particularly prior to about 1900 or so, those limits were placed solely on GOVERNMENT, not on the people or on society.

That is an important distinction.  It is important because the constitution, while it lasts a number of what it considers to be baseline rights, only stipulates that the government itself cannot infringe on those rights.  It does and says nothing as regards societal pressures, exhibited by private concerns and citizens. As a more famous example, XM radio is a private concern. therefore, freedom of speech is not guaranteed when that speech does not mesh with the requirements of employment at XM.

Similarly, the constitution does not guarantee a race neutral environment in private clubs.  Golf clubs, for example, Augusta National, for example.

Where we run into trouble with this misconception of which I spoke, is when people try to invoke change on the situations like that I’ve mentioned, by means of government.  In short, they tried to force social change by means of governmental power.

Just something to ponder tonight.

So the Democrats in the Senate are in the process of trying to put together a “no confidence” vote. as I understand it, As I further understand it, this vote does not have any legally binding articles in it, it is merely a statement of collective(ist) opinion of the majority of the Senate, who are Democrats at the moment.  All this really means is that Senate Democrats are not too happy about an attorney general, that they didn’t have a part in placing. Please tell me that this is not supposed to be news.

We know the Democrats have a rather longish history of stating, well after the fact, that they disapproved of something, that they are on record as having approved of.  For example, our actions in Iraq.  But I guess the question becomes: Have the Democrats ever approved of anything Mr. Bush has done, that they will now admit to?

When boiled down, all this is simply more posturing for the left’s base. Nothing more.

Tell me; when might the Senate actually tend to something that matters? Like for example, at what point might we expect the fence along the Mexican border to be built, as they promised us?

Update:

The Democrats couldn’t even raise enough votes to pass on nonbinding slam, even with the aid of useful idiots like Arlen Spector. The vote failed 53 to 38. 

It’s like Dennis Miller said last night; Harry Reid is meaningless.  And I’ll extend that; the democrats are meaningless.

And along comes Jonah Goldberg:

Did anyone else read the NYT magazine this weekend? It was all about poverty and income inequality. Some articles were better than others, and I didn’t read them all, but the hilarious part wasn’t in the articles. It was in the ads. On page after page, the magazine hawked luxury condos starting in the 8 figures. Pictures of these glorious $10 million-plus pied-à-terres with 24-hour doormen, room service and Master of the Universe views of Manhattan were punctuated with ads for financial advisers and garish jewelry — and, oh yeah, essays on what to do about the poor.

Clearly, the New York Times has its audience figured out. They know what’s going to be the liberal elite that will tear into that kind of this story….  and as Joanah points out, guess who is on the cover of this week’s Times Magazine? Of course, John Edwards… Yet another liberal elite making all the right noises about “the poor”, and yet whose mansion makes those $10 million places look like hovels.

Now, other than the faux concern  for the poor by Edwards and trying to position himself politically, why would the Times so place his picture, do you suppose?

Classic Economics says that if price goes up, then demand goes down.  Yet leftards have been trying to ignore economic reality by mindlessly demanding that the price of murder be ignored so as not to offend their sensibilities.

Liberals oppose the death penalty despite the common sense reality that increasing the cost of committing murder decreases the willingness to commit murder.  Now we have academic studies, supporting common sense, the death penalty does deter murder.

Sister Toldjah says:

I take a look at the molestation and murder of 6 year-old Christopher Michael Barrios as well as the torture, rape, and murders of young Tennessee couple Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom and I wouldn’t feel any moral conflict should their rapists/killers get the DP.

In Mrs. Clinton’s spirit of the common good, if taking life away from a few murders lets many more live, sobeit.  The death penalty should not be viewed as if it were some sort of moral dilemma, but rather only a common sense approach to crime.

If the lefttards wish to refute the common sense proposition that increasing the cost of murder does not decrease the rate of murder, they will need some extraordinary evidence.  Good luck.

?

If you write for an online site long enough, you’re eventually going to come up with a certain number of phrases that are genuine keepers.  I suppose it’s the infinite monkeys on indefinite typewriters theory.  Shakespeare it ain’t, but….

>>>>

There is no such thing as ‘shades of grey’,no ‘grey areas’, only black and white spots, some of which are very small. If you see grey, you’re not getting close enough to what you’re looking at to know it’s true nature.
===============

There is nobody so intent on enforcing conformity to their ideas and ideals, as a person who insists on the PC version of diversity… because political correctness brings diversity in everything but… thought.
======

Liberalism and Socialism are an adolescent mindsets. Giving liberals and socialists the power of government is like giving a 944 Porsche to a 12 year old.
======

I would put Glenn Greenwald calling anyone’s masculinity into question, on par with Greenwald’s Hero, Harry Reid, calling anyone “incompetent”, and for the same reason.
======

There is no such thing as an “illegal immigrant”. Either they are immigrants, who arrived here and live here legally, or they are criminals. The former, are entitled to everything that our society offers, provided that they are willing to become citizens, which by nature of the word, would include learning the language, and adopting the United States, culturally, as well as financially. The latter are entitled to nothing whatsoever.
======

There is always very loud support for the United Nations, from the American left. Has it occurred to any of you, that perhaps the most important thing the United Nations has ever done was to set up the country of Israel? So it is that the leftists who support the United Nations do not support the only really important action it’s ever taken. Go figure. One wonders just what they’re supporting it for.

======

Negotiation and capitulation do not bring peace.  What brings peace is judicious use of high explosives pointed at those who would claim power over others.

======

There are worse things than war.  Hillary Clinton, for example.

======

Andrew Sullivan is a natural spokesman for Preparation H. He’s also a reason for it.

======

Retreat? The Democrats aren’t calling for a retreat… they’re arranging for us to advance in another direction.

=======

Bestiality: a perverted sex act between a human and a Democrat

=======

Democrats chose a Jackass as their logo, because nobody could draw a decent picture of a leech.

========

I’m firmly convinced the John Edwards would do far better among the poor, were he to have his nose surgically lowered.

========

Sure, I think the country’s ready for a woman president, but what in the world has that got to do with Hillary Clinton?

=======

The Democrats in Congress have developed the rather interesting habit of operating at a 90° angle to reality.

========

It strikes me as interesting that the people that were so bothered by “Rod Majors” , will invariably rise in defense of Barney Franks and Steven Gobie’s little enterprise in Georgetown. … Assuming they can even remember back to 89.
========