Political Quote of the Day

From conservative bomb-thrower Ann Coulter:

All liberals are atheists. Only the ones who have to stand for election even bother pretending to believe in God.

Since I know a few liberals who are also dedicated Christians I can't go along with Coulter's blanket statement. But certainly in Washington there seems to be a collection of liberals who enjoy draping themselves in their faith (often Catholic but I can think of one Mormon too) and yet openly oppose their own church's views on things like abortion. I do believe those people are religious by convenience and not by any serious commitment to the faith.

Homeland Security Graphic of the Day

Since liberals are a volatile bunch, IMAO points out Homeland Securities new "Liberal Anger Level" meter to keep us all informed.  See IMAO's post for more details.:

Thought For the Day

From moi:

The liberals who are now supporting the Ground Zero Mosque are not doing so out of a new found tolerance for religion or love of the Constitution, they are doing so because it pisses off conservatives.  Liberals do not approach issues with logic, they are emotional creatures.  Something which conservatives oppose they must support.  They don't know why, they just know they must.

I was just listening to a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show try and explain how supporting this mosque would show the Islamic world the superiority of our political system. What rot.

Only a person who deals in emotional unreality thinks the Islamic world is going to be influenced positively by supporting the Ground Zero Mosque. To the Islamic world it will simply be another victory over the infidel. Anyone who thinks the Islamic world will suddenly have a moment of introspection because of our surrender is simply foolish.

And the other meme going around today is the presence of Muslim services in the Pentagon, another site attacked on 9/11.  Yes, they have services there for Islamic members of the military, but they don't have a mosque in the Pentagon.  There's a difference between a room where people are allowed to meet and an actual dedicated religious building.

I'll tell you what, when a Baptist church is built at Mecca I'll rethink my opposition to this mosque.

The Left Has Collapsed

Bill Kristol discusses their demise:

The left has collapsed.

Its political support has collapsed. Public opinion polls point to a historic repudiation of the president and the Democratic party this fall—something on the order of a 60-seat Republican gain in the House. The GOP has an outside shot at taking the Senate as well.

Its claim to intellectual integrity has collapsed. Paul Krugman—Ivy League professor, New York Times columnist, and Nobel laureate (the holy trinity of the liberal establishment)—has humiliated himself with a startlingly dishonest attack on Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. Krugman, called out by Ryan, rebuked by honest analysts, and unwilling to concede his errors, has retreated into uncharacteristic abashed silence.

Its Leninist discipline has collapsed. Last week, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs complained about the craziness of the “professional left” in the punditocracy. “Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs explained. “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality. .  .  . They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.” Members of the professional left hit back at Gibbs, dubbing the Obama White House the “amateur left.”

Its democratic credibility has collapsed. In recent weeks, the left has the arbitrary rulings and sophistic arguments of federal judges who have overturned an immigration statute that mirrors federal law passed by the state legislature in Arizona, and a constitutional amendment, defining marriage as it has been defined for all of American history, enacted by the citizens of California. The left has also heaped praise on New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, as he, having bought his way to a narrow reelection, showered disdain and contempt on the majority of his fellow New Yorkers who object to a mosque next to Ground Zero.




And its good humor (such as it was) has collapsed. As Politico’s Ben Smith reported last week,

the Agenda Project, a new, progressive group with roots in New York’s fundraising scene and a goal of strengthening the progressive movement, has launched the “F*ck Tea” project, which is aimed, the group’s founder Erica Payne wrote in an e-mail this morning, “to dismiss the Tea Party and promote the progressive cause.”

“We will be launching new products in the next several months to help people all over the country F*ck Tea,” Payne told Politico.

Is Erica Payne a loony nobody? No, she’s a lefty somebody—a former Democratic National Committee official, a veteran of many progressive groups, and one of the founders of the Democracy Alliance, the group of big donors who have spent over $100 million to fund “progressive” organizations like the Center for American Progress.

Payne says she launched her effort to push back against “the rhetoric over results paradigm that is holding our country hostage.” She wasn’t being ironic. As the estimable Allahpundit commented, “Because, you see, if there’s any movement that’s about results over rhetoric, it’s clearly the f*ck tea movement.”

The “f*ck tea” movement—that’s what the left has come to. They can’t defend the results of Obama’s policies or the validity of Krugman’s arguments. They know it’s hard to sustain an antidemocratic ethos in a democracy. They realize they’ve degenerated into pro-am levels of whining and squabbling. So they curse their opponents.

There's more at the link.

That last part of that excerpt which refers to the "f*ck tea" movement is so very typical of the modern left. Most of the time when I get comments from the left they're nearly always angry and generally have to be deleted because they can't discuss the issue at hand but instead immediately result to profanity and insults. When your whole political philosophy is based on emotion you run out of logical things to say pretty fast.

Netroots Nutcases Invade Las Vegas

It's screaming liberal moron weekend in Vegas and the angry lefties are angry at Democrats:

But as Netroots Nation, a conference of 2,100 liberal activists, opened here Thursday, it was clear that anger among some prominent progressives is still raw -- and it could imperil some Democrats this fall.

Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos blog and an organizer of the first such annual conference five years ago, said he and his followers are disinclined to help Democratic candidates simply to preserve the party's big majorities.

"There's a lot of Democrats I'll be happy to see go," Moulitsas said in an interview. "I'll celebrate when Blanche Lincoln is out of the Senate. There is a price to be paid for inaction and incompetence. We're not getting much done with 59 [Democratic senators], so if we're down to 54, who cares?"

... Moulitsas's views were echoed by other progressive leaders who spoke on panels Thursday.

The panelists gave voice to lingering disappointment over Halter's failed bid. Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, had particularly harsh words for Bill Clinton, whose full-throated endorsement of Lincoln is credited with helping her win.

"It's tough to see someone you've believed in betray you in a big way," Green said of the former president. "We need to pick our heroes. . . . I think it would be sad if we went through this entire conference without calling out Bill Clinton for what he did."

According to others who are there Sarah Palin has been the focus of much of the attention of the speakers. She clearly scares them half to death.

42%-20%

That's the ratio of conservatives to liberals in the country right now:

Conservatives have maintained their leading position among U.S. ideological groups in the first half of 2010. Gallup finds 42% of Americans describing themselves as either very conservative or conservative. This is up slightly from the 40% seen for all of 2009 and contrasts with the 20% calling themselves liberal or very liberal.

This is a center-right country being led by far left leaders. Something has to give and that's probably going to happen in November.

We Can't Afford a President Stuck on Stupid

Christopher Chantrill at American Thinker tells us the problem in the Gulf is not just an incompetent president, but an incompetent political philosophy that thinks government can be made rational and efficient:

It is true that liberalism is cruel, corrupt, wasteful, and unjust. But one should never forget its delusion. The delusion is a simple one. It is a belief that government can be made rational and efficient. This delusion leads our liberal friends into disaster after disaster.

Liberals were shocked that President Bush failed to get everyone tucked up in bed in a couple of days after Hurricane Katrina. They knew that a rational and efficient government, run by people like them who believed in government, could do better.

Now President Obama is busy proving them wrong.

Unfortunately, conservatives aren't helping. In pointing out the serious lapses in the president's leadership qualities, we conservatives are missing the point. We are encouraging liberals in their delusion. Instead, we should remind everyone that of course a bunch of corporate bureaucrats, combined with a bunch of government bureaucrats, are going to be a bit off the mark.

A bit of presidential leadership might have made a difference, we could have said, but not much. The president brings the talents and experience of twenty years in left-wing organizing to the presidency. In that school, the attitude, the gesture, is all-important. So obviously he's not going to be much help in a crisis.

But leader or no leader, it takes time to plug a hole -- especially a hole under five thousand feet of water.

The big problem for the president is that the Gulf oil spill is his fourth major presidential mistake. The first big mistake was the $787-billion stimulus package. The second was the appeasement of thug dictators, Islamist and leftist. The third mistake was ObamaCare. The fourth is the Gulf.

(The bailouts of the auto industry I count as merely a crime, an assault and battery on the principle of private property and senior creditors, the very foundation of our freedom and prosperity.)

The horrifying thing is that we Americans can't afford all these mistakes. We can't afford a president stuck on stupid.

There's more a the link.

This is a good opportunity for Republicans to point out to voters the fallacy that bigger government means better government. Bigger government, such as that which we've just been signed up for with Obamacare, will automatically mean gross inefficiency and waste. It's as sure as the sun coming up tomorrow.

Feel Good Video of the Day

From the gathering of progressive loons in Washington:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) remarks to a gathering of progressive activists at the America's Future Now conference on Tuesday were greeted by screaming protesters, forcing Pelosi to literally yell parts of her speech.

There's shaky video at the link.

UPDATE:  A second report:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is heckled by Code Pink at an event in Washington, D.C.

"We supported Obama, we supported you, now 21 states are begging for money to help us save the community," a woman screamed at Pelosi.

"You have made your point," Pelosi said in an attempt to quiet the protesters.

An aide informed her that they are "throwing stuff."

More video here.

Political Quote of the Day

From The Anchoress:

“Every murderous totalitarian government of the 20th century began with some insulated group of faux-intellectuals congratulating each other on how smart they are, and fantasizing about how, if they could just install a dictatorship-for-a-day, they could right all the wrongs in the world. It is the ultimate fantasy of the narcissist. And we’ve got whole generations of them, in control of our media and our government, all intent on ‘remaking America.’”

Yep. The academics and cocktail party crowd thinks they can fix America with their brilliance...if we'll just let them. However, the ignorant masses keep getting in their way.

Go get 'em, ignorant masses!

The Left Has An Attack Over Kagan

The liberal left is in high dudgeon over the selection of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court.  Here's a sample from Glenn Greenwald:

It's anything but surprising that President Obama has chosen Elena Kagan to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. Nothing is a better fit for this White House than a blank slate, institution-loyal, seemingly principle-free careerist who spent the last 15 months as the Obama administration's lawyer vigorously defending every one of his assertions of extremely broad executive authority. The Obama administration is filled to the brim with exactly such individuals -- as is reflected by its actions and policies -- and this is just one more to add to the pile. The fact that she'll be replacing someone like John Paul Stevens and likely sitting on the Supreme Court for the next three decades or so makes it much more consequential than most, but it is not a departure from the standard Obama approach.

The New York Times this morning reports that "Mr. Obama effectively framed the choice so that he could seemingly take the middle road by picking Ms. Kagan, who correctly or not was viewed as ideologically between Judge Wood on the left and Judge Garland in the center." That's consummate Barack Obama. The Right appoints people like John Roberts and Sam Alito, with long and clear records of what they believe because they're eager to publicly defend their judicial philosophy and have the Court reflect their values. Beltway Democrats do the opposite: the last thing they want is to defend what progressives have always claimed is their worldview, either because they fear the debate or because they don't really believe those things, so the path that enables them to avoid confrontation of ideas is always the most attractive, even if it risks moving the Court to the Right.

Why would the American public possibly embrace a set of beliefs when even its leading advocates are unwilling to publicly defend them and instead seek to avoid that debate at every turn? Hence: Obama chooses an individual with very few stated beliefs who makes the Right quite comfortable (even as they go through the motions of opposing her)

I don't think I'd describe anyone on the right as "quite comfortable". This lady is another lefty, that's for sure, and I don't see anyone on the right giving high 5's over this nomination. Chances are anyone Obama could get confirmed was going to be to the right of John Paul Stevens, and this one probably is, but not by much. She has no judicial record, limited record of legal publications, limited time as an actual lawyer, and has spent most of her time in the academic realm.

In other words, she's Barack Obama.

She won't change the complexion of the court other than there will be one more stall available in the judge's men's room. And for those who think she'll be some sort of intellectual counterpoint to John Roberts and Sam Alito and will be able to swing Justice Kennedy toward the dark side, I have my doubts.

The question now is, when will the most oppressed group in America get a judge on the Supreme Court - white male Protestants?

Why the Libs Never Understood 9/11

I was taking the long 3.1 mile walk around Lake Mission Viejo and as usual was thinking about a lot of different things. Mostly outrage over Obamacare and the unconstitutional maneuvers being attempted in the House and Senate. I couldn't help but think that liberals live in a very different country than the rest of us.

Somehow that got me thinking about the 9/11 attacks and how quickly the libs lost the sense of national unity and patriotism that affected the rest of us. I didn't see any bright lights or hear any booming voices, but I had a bit of a revelation. I realized that the liberals did not feel they were attacked that day.

The liberals looked at 9/11 as an attack on Big Business/Capitalism (World Trade Center), the Military (Pentagon), and to a lesser extent George Bush, who they hated for "stealing" the election in 2000. The libs hate Big Business and the Military, and have spent their lives trying to destroy both of them. George Bush was the most hated man in the liberal universe. Consequently, the libs didn't really have a dog in the 9/11 fight. It was easy for them to revert to their pre-9/11 mentality while the rest of the country was looking for revenge.

The fourth jet never made it to Washington D.C., but I can't help but wonder how different the liberal attitude might have been had that jet hit the U.S. Capitol. Would that have forced them to realize that all Americans are enemies in the eyes of the terrorists, or would they have justified the wreckage at the Capitol as an attack on the Republican majorities?

We'll never know.

Political Quote of the Day

From rabid lefty "comic" Bill Maher:

“But what the Democrats never understand is that Americans don’t really care what position you take, just stick with one. Just be strong. They’re not bright enough to really understand the issues. But like an animal, they can sort of sense strength or weakness. They can smell it on you.”

Yes, America, you're too dumb to know what's really going on and are easily led by someone pretending to know what they're doing. That's pretty much the attitude that you'll find throughout the political establishment, though I think it's more prevalent among Democrats, especially those who seek to marginalize groups like the Tea Party protesters.

The Fourth Liberal Crack-up

It's happened before, in fact pretty much every time Democrats have been in the White House since the mid-60's:

The political retirement of Evan Bayh, at age 54, is being portrayed by various sages as a result of too much partisanship, or the Senate's dysfunction, or even the systemic breakdown of American governance. Most of this is rationalization. The real story, of which Mr. Bayh's frustration is merely the latest sign, is the failure once again of liberal governance.

For the fourth time since the 1960s, American voters in 2008 gave Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the White House. Republicans haven't had such large majorities since the 1920s. Yet once again, Democratic leaders have tried to govern the country from the left, only to find that their policies have hit a wall of practical and popular resistance.

Democrats failed in the latter half of the 1960s, as the twin burdens of the Great Society and Vietnam ended the Kennedy boom and split their party. They failed again after Watergate, as Congress dragged Jimmy Carter to the left and liberals had no answer for stagflation. They failed a third time in the first two Bill Clinton years, as tax increases and HillaryCare led to the Gingrich Congress before Mr. Clinton salvaged his Presidency by tacking to the center.

A fourth crackup is already well underway and is even more remarkable considering how Democrats were set up for success. Inheriting a recession amid GOP failures, Democrats had the chance to restore economic confidence and fix the financial system with modest reforms that would let them take credit for the inevitable recovery. Yet only 13 months later, Democrats are down in the polls, their agenda is stymied by Democratic opposition, and their House and Senate majorities are in peril as moderates like Mr. Bayh flee the scene of this political accident.

Democrats have responded by blaming "obstructionist" Republicans, who lack the votes to block anything by themselves; or a failure to communicate the right message, though President Obama is a master communicator; or even Madison's framework of checks and balances, though this system has worked better than all others for some 225 years.

John Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama's transition and heads the Center for American Progess that has supplied the Administration's ideas, summed up the liberal-media mood last week when he told the Financial Times that American governance now "sucks." If you can't blame your own ideas, blame the system.

The real source of this mess is the agenda that Democrats have tried to ram through the political system. Far from offering new ideas to reform the welfare state or compete better against rising global powers, Democrats have with rare exception tried to impose the same spending, tax and regulatory agenda that failed in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. Mr. Obama was a new face promising new hope, but his ideas are as old as the average Congressional Chairman.

Their ideas don't work...never have, never will. However, they're so certain of the political wisdom of their socialist agenda they just can't give it up even though it has failed time and time again.

Unfortunately, they're very slow learners and even after this latest failure results in a dramatic loss of seats in November and a one-term president in 2012, we know that when the voter's memories of this time fades and they elect another Democrat to the White House we'll do it all over again.

America is "Ungovernable"...Again

American Thinker shows us the "ungovernable" argument seems to come up every time a liberal Democrat is running the country into the ground:

Liberals are at it again. They are worrying that the U.S. is "ungovernable." Political scientist Jay Cost has the details:

Ezra Klein argued that it was time to reform the filibuster because the government cannot function with it intact anymore. Tom Friedman suggested that America's "political instability" was making people abroad nervous. And Michael Cohen of Newsweek blamed"obstructionist Republicans," "spineless Democrats," and an "incoherent public" for the problem.

Liberals were saying exactly the same thing in 1980, thirty years ago, in the darkest days of the Carter administration. The mess of inflation, recession, Iran hostages, and gas lines, they decided, was not a direct result of stupid Carter administration policy. It was a sign that America's best days were behind us, and that there was nothing to do but decline gracefully.

You'll remember that U.S. voters in the fall of 1980 had a different idea. They decided to elect a B-movie actor to the presidency. Yes, that's what liberals called Ronald Reagan back then. Clark Clifford, the "wise man of Washington," hadn't even thought of calling him an "amiable dunce." Not yet.

The Amiable Dunce proceeded to cut tax rates. He strengthened the dollar and cut government spending. It wasn't so much governing as getting government out of the way. The result was a twenty-year boom. And now here we are back where we started, with a nasty economy, a soft dollar, a failed presidency, and another generation of liberals complaining that the U.S. is ungovernable.

America is considered "ungovernable" when liberal Democrats are unable to get their agenda past Republicans who simply refuse to go along. If Democrats want to govern they need to offer ideas that have appeal to both parties and not just to the far left fringe.

The filibuster is a protection for the country from the most extreme ideas on both sides of the political spectrum. Eliminating the filibuster might allow the Dems to briefly enact their wacky left agenda, but it would also be the political death of their party. They'd get summarily tossed out on their ears at the next election and would then have handed the GOP a filibuster-free Senate that could undo everything they did and bring in their own ideas from the right. Ending the filibuster won't make anyone happy in the long term.

America is fully governable when the political leaders from both parties stick to an agenda with widespread support among both parties. That's how a two-party government should work.

Anti-Tea Party Group Funded by Union Dollars

The Tea Party movement obviously scared some liberal Democrats pretty badly. Why else would they have gone to this much trouble:

A seemingly grassroots organization that's mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds -- including sizable labor union contributions -- through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer.

A Web site popped up in January dedicated to preventing the tea party's "radical" and "dangerous" ideas from "gaining legislative traction," targeting GOP candidates in Illinois for the firing squad.

"This movement is a fad," proclaims TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, which was established by the American Public Policy Center (APPC), a D.C.-based campaign shop that few people have ever heard of.

But a close look reveals the APPC's place in a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country's biggest labor unions into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

Here's how it works: What appears like a local groundswell is in fact the creation of two men -- Craig Varoga and George Rakis, Democratic Party strategists who have set up a number of so-called 527 groups, the non-profit election organizations that hammer on contentious issues (think Swift Boats, for example).

Varoga and Rakis keep a central mailing address in Washington, pulling in soft money contributions from unions and other well-padded sources to engage in what amounts to a legal laundering system. The money -- tens of millions of dollars -- gets circulated around to different states by the 527s, which pay for TV ads, Internet campaigns and lobbyist salaries, all while keeping the hands of the unions clean -- for the most part.

The system helps hide the true sources of funding, giving the appearance of locally bred opposition in states from Oklahoma to New Jersey, or in the case of the Tea Party Web site, in Illinois.

And this whitewash is entirely legal, say election law experts, who told FoxNews.com that this arrangement more or less the norm in Washington.

"It's not illegal but it is, I think, dishonest on the part of the organizations," said Paul Ryan, a legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center. "And there's a reason they do it: they know voters don't like outsiders coming in to sway the vote."

The unions and activists know that if they were truthful about their support for this organization the voters would quickly reject them. That's why they have to cloak their efforts in falsehoods and create these "astroturf" (or false grassroots) efforts.

The actual Tea Party movement, on the other hand, was very much a grassroots effort and that's why it survives and grows today. And yes, it is a threat to liberal interests.

Pelosi's the Problem

That's pretty much the message the GOP House members gave to Obama yesterday at the GOP Retreat:

President Obama and House Republicans had a rather candid, at times combative, but overall a fascinating and rare public exchange on the successes and failures of the administration's first year in office here today. Republicans came in determined to show that they in fact have been more than the "party of no" that Democrats portray them as, while Obama called on the opposition to tone down what he deemed as hyperbolic attacks.

In the end, what emerged from the session was a clear sense of how Republicans could potentially frame this year's midterm elections. Multiple Congressmen rose to hail the president's promises and intentions but argued that he has been ill-served by an obstinate House Democratic leadership, and specifically Speaker Pelosi.

That point was driven home most effectively, perhaps, by Rep. Pete Roskam (R-Ill.), a former colleague of Obama's in the Illinois state Senate. He said he had enjoyed collaborating on tough issues with Obama in Springfield, but wondered what had changed.

"You've gotten the subtext of House Republicans that sincerely want to come and be a part of this national conversation toward solutions, but they've really been stiff-armed by Speaker Pelosi," Roskam said. "The obstacle is, frankly, the politics within the Democratic caucus."

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the GOP conference chairman, was more blunt, waving a compilation of his party's ideas, and saying to the president that the summary "is backed up by precisely the kind of detailed legislation that Speaker Pelosi and your administration have been busy ignoring for 12 months."

And despite the whipping her party took in Massachusetts largely because of the health care issue, San Fran Nan issued another "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" message on healthcare. She doesn't get it.

And making her the focal point of the House races this fall could be a very successful strategy. She's not well loved among most of the people in this country.

The Desperate Attempt to Ignore the Elephant in the Room

The elephant in this case does not represent the GOP, but the big issues that drove the election in Massachusetts. Look at these dueling headlines on Drudge:

Obama Says 'We Lost Touch'... Didn't Speak 'Directly to American People'...

BUT

Obama's First Year: By The Numbers:
INTERVIEWS: 158
SPEECHES, COMMENTS & REMARKS: 411

It wasn't the lack of speaking to the American people that caused the backlash in Massachusetts (or Virginia or New Jersey), but what they were saying when they spoke. The voters don't like Obamacare. They don't like cap-and-tax, especially now that it's obviously based on the hoax of global warming. They don't like big government bailouts. They don't like the government taking over the private sector.

They don't like Obama and the Dems' policies. That's why Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley last night.

Unfortunately for America, Obama is a leftist ideologue who has never run anything in his life and knows nothing about working toward consensus. In every job he's had, from community organizer to state legislator to senator to president, he's relentlessly pushed a leftist agenda. He doesn't know how to do anything else, and that's what he'll continue to do now to his and his party's detriment. It appears he's planning to go down with the ship on all of his lefty issues, and it doesn't bother him that the crew and passenger will be going with him.

Bill Clinton took a beating in 1994 but learned something from it. He governed in Arkansas as a moderate-to-conservative. His liberalism in the presidency was not his natural state of being, but a response to the leftists that ran Congress at the time. Once he was free of their control (when they were voted out in '94), he reverted to a more centrist line and was able to be re-elected in '96.

Obama won't follow Clinton's example. And he probably won't follow Clinton's example of being re-elected.

The Conservative Test

Lots of people who wanted to be politically correct or seen as appropriately compassionate voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and the Democrats in Congress in '06 and '08. Now we are all living with those decisions and watching liberalism run completely amok in D.C. According to this American Thinker piece lots of people are having "Eureka!" moments and realizing that in fact, they're not liberals at all but are very comfortable with real conservative values.

The piece includes 30 items that might help you decide if you're a conservative or liberal:

I am against the federal redistribution of wealth.

I am against entitlement politics.

I am against American czars.

I am against apology tours that denigrate the greatness of our country.

I am against tax-and-spend politics.

I am against government takeovers.

I am against amnesty citizenship for those who have entered our country illegally.

I am against the out-of-control printing of money.

I am against legislation designed to do away with free speech (Fairness Doctrine).

I am against big government.

I am against trillion-dollar government stimulus package slush funds.

I am against treating our allies like enemies and our enemies like friends.

I am against politicians who do not let us drill for oil.

I am against politicians who look the other way while Iran and North Korea develop nuclear weapons.

I am against government-run health care.

I am against health care bills that provide abortion funding.

I am against backroom deals by politicians that circumvent transparency and the Constitution.

I am against trillion-dollar deficits.

I am against high taxes.

I am against treating all people to the identical security scrutiny in airports.

I am against bills that provide special exemptions for legislators.

I am against bills that provide special privileges to certain states.

I am against those who would stifle an honest global warming debate.

I am against the federal funding of corrupt organizations like ACORN.

I am against "Miranda rights" for foreign terrorists.

I am against confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed getting a civilian trial in NY.

I am against cap-and-trade legislation and taxing carbon footprints.

I am against the closing of GITMO and the bringing of terrorists to American soil.

I am against letting the U.N. tell us how to live.

I am against a president who does not believe in American exceptionalism.

If you agree with most or all of the above, congratulations, you're a conservative! We'll send you your official decoder ring after you vote out the Democrats in 2010.

Rush Limbaugh has long said that most people live their lives as conservatives, regardless of what political values they may claim to support. They may think abortion should be readily available to everybody...except their own daughters. They may claim that illegal aliens should be given amnesty...as long as they don't move in next door. They may be opposed to capital punishment for everyone...except the guy that does something to their loved one or commits a terrorist act against Americans. Much of liberalism is simply a desire to be seen by others as a member of the enlightened class, but in many the liberal values don't run very deep.

People are now discovering that they don't much like what they see when liberalism they thought they supported is unfettered and inflicted on them. We call those people "former Democrats".

We're Number One!

The Obama Administration has accomplished something that the GOP was never able to do - make conservatives the number one ideological group:

The increased conservatism that Gallup first identified among Americans last June persisted throughout the year, so that the final year-end political ideology figures confirm Gallup's initial reporting: conservatives (40%) outnumbered both moderates (36%) and liberals (21%) across the nation in 2009.

More broadly, the percentage of Americans calling themselves either conservative or liberal has increased over the last decade, while the percentage of moderates has declined.

We're number one, and though the liberals may be number three, they're full of number two. Therein lies their problem.

In a related item, Rasmussen has the GOP up 9 points now in the generic ballot. Dems has a big lead when Obama took office. My how times have changed.

Even the Left is Running Out of Patience

This from OpEd News:

Hey did you hear about the iconic African-American guy who plays golf, and whose relationship with the public is in a free-fall lately?

No, as a matter of fact I'm not talking about Tiger Woods.

You know, I've really been trying not to write an article every other week about all the things I don't like about Barack Obama.

But the little prick is making it very hard.

Like any good progressive, I've gone from admiration to hope to disappointment to anger when it comes to this president. Now I'm fast getting to rage.

How much rage? I find myself thinking that the thing I want most from the 2010 elections is for his party to get absolutely clobbered, even if that means a repeat of 1994. And that what I most want from 2012 is for him to be utterly humiliated, even if that means President Palin at the helm. That much rage.

The rant goes on here.

Frankly, this sounds a lot like those Republicans who said in 2008 "I hope the Dems win big to teach the GOP a lesson". How'd that work out?

Still, I'm not the least bit upset to hear that progressives (i.e. liberals) are upset with The One - upset enough to prefer a GOP congress and President Palin to what they have now.