While I have long been most critical of my current home state’s junior Senator for her lock-step liberalism and ineffective legislating, I do commend her for her staunch support for Israel, event as support for the Jewish State has lost favor in the left-wing circles in which she travels.

Three years ago, she “rescinded an award given to a California resident because of his position with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)“.  ”Boxer and her staff cited concerns about CAIR’s positions on terrorist groups, contending that CAIR had refused to label Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.”

Well, given the Administration’s recent attacks on Israel, blogger Bruce Kesler wonders if Mrs. Boxer, who often puts partisanship over principle is boxed in by Obama:

California Senator Barbara Boxer, although advocating the most extreme liberal views undermining national security, has been a firm supporter of Israel.

Now, Boxer faces the American Jewish dilemma.  She and over 75% of American Jews supported the election of President Obama.  Obama’s, can’t call it anything else, attacks on Israel has gotten roundly criticized by leading Jewish organizations (AIPAC and ADL) and by Republican leaders (here, here and here).

Where is Boxer?  Nothing has been heard from her.

Is she waiting for marching, or parroting, orders from the White House?

My sense is that she’ll be silent and cross her fingers, hoping that Tom Campbell, with his anti-Israel voting record and double-talking about his associations with terrorist apologists prevails in the contest to run against her on the Republican ticket.  Then, she won’t need address Obama’s attitude toward Israel as the focus will be on Campbell’s record.

Should, however, Carly Fiorina prevail, then Ma’am’s gonna face a big dilemma, whether to take issue with her president or stand up for Israel, particularly given the substantial Jewish population in her jurisdiction.

She does have a record of preferring partisanship.  While she once championed women allegedly victimized by sexual harassment, she was silent when a Democratic president was accused of such harassment.  Seems, for Mrs. Boxer, partisanship trumps all.

I had thought to make this a very slow blogging week.  I’m finishing up research on another chapter of my dissertation–and am learning what a true and utter geek I am.   When I discover a good book of scholarship on the Iliad, I find myself reading the whole thing, even the chapters not entirely relevant to my project.  And while a lot of the scholarship is indeed jargon, given how much there is (on that great epic), it’s easy to weed out the crap and focus on the good stuff.

But, given that this is yet another week for the Democrats’ health care endgame, a game which responsible politicians would have ended five months ago, there could be some interesting blogging ahead.

For now, I’ll make this observation:  the Democrats can still win this battle legislatively, but no matter what the outcome, they’ve already lost it politically.

If they pass the bill, they will have done so, not in an open process, but through devious means, crafting the bill in secret, offering payoffs to wavering Senators to get that chamber to pass it and using procedural shenanigans to force it through the House.  They’ll have exposed themselves as putting legislative victory ahead of all other considerations, even and especially the “good government” issues they ran on in 2006 and 2008.

And if they lose, well, David Freddoso says it best:

Consider: If Obama wins, he gets a very unpopular bill whose higher taxes and Medicare cuts materialize immediately, years before its benefits kick in. If he loses in the coming weeks, he doesn’t even get the satisfaction of blaming the Republicans. He’s already past the stage at which a GOP filbuster can stop this thing. Instead, he will have lost in a House vote, with members of his own party striking the death blow against his top legislative priority.

So, today, I’m running a few errands around LA and had to stop at store in Beverly Hills to get a gift certificate.   I found “rock star” parking, a spot right in front of the establishment.  And I could see a note on the meter in this 15-minute zone (indicated by two signs within close proximity of each other).

While I didn’t think my errand would take more than 15 minutes, I figured the note said, “Failed Meter” (or some such) meaning I wouldn’t even have to pay a dime for parking.  But, no, the note didn’t say that the meter had failed, but that someone had put in several quarters, only to have the meter continually read “15 minutes.”  I just shook my head in amusement, wondering if the person who penned the note had bothered to look around.

Had the person read the sign, she might have saved herself a few quarters.  :-)

Only once is my life have I voted in a Democratic primary.  I did that back in 1994, largely because I realized that if the Democrat I backed had won his primary, I would have voted for him in the general.  That year, while leaving in Charlottesville, Virginia, I (quite literally) pulled the level for Virgil Goode (then a Democrat) challenging Chuck Robb for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.  I balked at supporting the GOP nominee Oliver North (against whom I had voted at the state GOP convention).

When I learned that blogger Mickey Kaus was tossing his hat into the ring against California’s ineffective and hyperpartisan junior Senator, Ma’am Barbara Boxer, in their party’s primary, I briefly thought of changing my registration so I could vote for this laconic liberal.  I appreciate his terse and and witty blog posts and have enjoyed chatting with him at various blogger shindigs in LA.

Were Kaus to win the Democratic primary, he would retire a big-spending, mean-spirited embarrassment from the Senate.  And he would make a far better Senator than she.  Even given her absence of accomplishment, she still would be the favorite should she win her party’s nomination–given Democrats’ registration edge in the Golden State.  A vote for Mickey would thus secure the end of her career.

All that said, I won’t be changing my registration.  It would only be honorable to do so if I were certain to vote for Mickey in the fall.  And while I like him, I disagree with him on too many issues to be able to support him against a Ronald Reagan conservative like Carly Fiorina (though if Mickey were up against Tom Campbell, I’d probably vote Democratic given that former California State Finance Director’s record on Israel and his big-spending ways in state government).

That said, the only reason you should vote in the opposing party’s primary is if you’re certain to support that candidate in the general.  And since I’m not certain I’d be voting for Mickey Kaus should he prevail in June, I’ll keep my Republican registration.

But, I’ll still be rooting for him–and won’t rule out supporting him come November if he emerges victorious this June.

If J.D. Hayworth weren’t such a pontificating blowhard, I might be more sympathetic of his campaign for the U.S. Senate.

Now, I certainly agree with him that it’s not for courts to define marriage and that while intimacy is a major part of a serious marriage, it is not its defining aspect.  So, now, we’ve got him saying that if state courts deciding marriage, it could lead to people marrying their horses:

Hayworth, during an interview with an Orlando, Fla., radio station explained: “You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage — now get this — it defined marriage as simply, ‘the establishment of intimacy.’”

“Now how dangerous is that?” asked Hayworth, who is challenging Sen. John McCain from the right in Arizona’s GOP Senate primary.

“I mean, I don’t mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point,” he continued. “I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse.”

Yeah, I know what he’s getting at.  Trying to show the slippery slop onto which such court decisions put us.  So, why not simply remove marriage from the jurisdiction of courts and make it instead (as it should be) the province of legislatures?  Instead, he wants the constitution to define marriage via a federal marriage amendment.

This pompous man’s pontificating shows he’s more interesting in getting attention than making a serious argument on a serious issue.  If he were serious about the slippery slope, he would favor a less draconian solution than the federal marriage amendment he backs.

Press Release, office of Barbara Boxer, February 13, 2009:

Senator Boxer said, “In the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the Congress has acted today to save or create jobs in California and across the nation.  With so many Californians anxious about the economy, this legislation offers help and hope.  This bill will put Californians to work now building the highways, bridges, transit and rail systems, and renewable energy sources of the 21st century.”

The White House predicts that the legislation will save or create approximately 400,000 jobs in California.

Los Angeles Times, 1 year, 26 days later:

For many California areas, unemployment rates moved persistently higher in January, indicating that the national economic recovery hasn’t yet translated into jobs for the Golden State.

New county-by-county figures released by the state Wednesday showed that in eight counties, more than 1 in 5 people were out of work. Moreover, revised numbers for last year show that fewer people were employed than was previously believed.

The state was one of five, along with Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, that reached their highest unemployment rates since the government began keeping track in 1976, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. California’s was 12.5% in January, up from 12.3% in December.

Seems like the state lost more jobs that Mrs. Boxer predicted would be created or saved.  Blogger Michael Roston, noting that the Sooner State is suffering nearly as badly as is the once-Golden State, wonders if we can expect to see the ‘Grapes of Wrath’ in reverse with people moving from California to Oklahoma.

(H/t for Roston piece which linked LA Times piece: Instapundit.)

Sometimes I think President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats are so hell-bent on passing health care is that they just want to prevent the GOP and Republicans from being able to gloat.

They’re so focused on being able to pass this “historic” bill.  But, just because the left has wanted a major health care overhaul for sixty some odd years doesn’t mean the American people want it.  And it’s too bad the Democrats confuse their own wishes–and their party’s long dreams with popular will.

I know there’s more to it than this, but when you look at how they’ve gamed the numbers, how they’ve bought off wavering Senators, how they’re using procedural gimmicks to pass this, it just seems that the goal of passing this has superseded all else.

Like the junkie selling all his possessions for a fix.

Ever since I read that House Democrats had released what it supposed to be the legislation for their final vote on health care, I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly they’re trying to do.  I mean, since they’re apparently going to be deeming the bill the Senate passed last December passed, shouldn’t that be the bill they’re releasing.

Well, not quite.  According to the Hill:

The House Budget Committee on Sunday evening released text that will serve as the base legislation for the changes the House will seek to the Senate bill this week.

Specifically, the Budget committee released a 2,309-page effort that had been previously recommended to the Education and Labor Committee and Ways and Means Committee last year.

But, get this:

The measure posted online does not include the substantive changes to the Senate healthcare bill that House Democrats will seek. Those changes will be offered during the markups in the Budget and Rules committees, which the budget panel hopes to begin on Monday afternoon.

So, in other words, they’ve released a final bill that isn’t really a final bill.   With the help of Philip Klein, Michelle tries to unpack just what the Democrats are doing:

Philip Klein reminds us that GOP Rep. Paul Ryan warned last week of the Dems’ strategy ramming this “shell” HC Bill through committee tomorrow. The budget committee approves the shell, sends it to the rules committee, then strips out the language and stuffs the actual reconciliation changes into the burrito, Klein explains. Klein lays it all out here.

Doesn’t sound very transparent to me.  Wonder if, as per Obama’s campaign promise, the Democrats allowed C-SPAN cameras to film the negotiations as they drew up this legislation and these procedural shenanigan.  As U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) put it in today’s Washington Post:

This convoluted legislative charade demonstrates how far the Democratic majority has wandered from real health-care reform and cost control, employing any means to achieve political victory.

It’s all about achieving political victory, no matter what damage to our Constitution, our nation’s health care system or even the Democratic Party.

Even Democrats who support a major health care overhaul will shy away from such shenanigans and they won’t play well in Peoria–or any place outside the type of deep blue enclaves that elect folk like Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen to Congress.

While I may quibble with Michael Barone about those “litmus tests” over the past twenty years, I agree with him about the “pivot” the Tea Party phenomenon could represent for the GOP:

The Republicans for the last two decades have been a party whose litmus tests have been cultural issues, especially abortion. The tea partiers have helped to change their focus to issues of government overreach and spending. That may be a helpful pivot, given the emergence of a millennial generation uncomfortable with crusading cultural conservatism.

In short, Tea Parties could help reshape the GOP in Ronald Reagan’s image, a party whose focus is reducing the size and scope of the federal government and championing freedom.  And this focus on small government turns the party’s attention away from divisive social issues, making it easier for people from all walks of life, including gays, to rally to its defense  – and help it stay on the offense against Democrats’ big government schemes.

Freedom is an idea which social conservative Christians as well as socially liberal gays can readily and warmly embrace.

The Barone piece, as is anything by that sage commentator, is well worth you time.  So just read the whole thing!

Michael C. Moynihan has picked up on a story which, for some reason, I don’t think will get much attention on non-conservative gay blogs. Norway’s Ministry of Children, Equality, and Social Inclusion (yes, I agree the name is Orwellian) has named Mahdi Hassan the “Role Model of the Year”.

The only problem, though, is that Hassan the Role Model has a wee problem with the gays; typically something that disqualifies one from being publicly celebrated in Scandinavia. According to [Norwegian journalist Rita] Karlsen, “Hassan told the newspaper Arbeidets Rett that he wants a ban on homosexuality, based on the Koran.” Does he support the death penalty for gays? That’s “up to each individual country to decide.” Wouldn’t want to judge the wonderful diversity of Koranic interpretation, now would we?

Defending the choice, Stein Petter Løkken, leader of the Socialist Left Party in Hassan’s home kommune of Tynset opined:

There is freedom of speech in Norway and in the Tynset Socialist Left Party we consider it unproblematic that Mahdi is opposed in principle to homosexuality. It is in accordance with his religion.

For some reason, I don’t think Mr. Løkken would be saying if Mr. Hassan’s religion were Christian.  But, then again, being a follower of that faith would likely disqualify him from any honors were he to have done exactly the same things he had been doing–and not harbor any animus against homosexuals.

(H/t Instapundit)

Every day, it seems, we discover some new piece of data showing just how much the federal leviathan has grown these past 14 months, with government salaries outpacing those in the private sector, with Washington D.C. booming while the heartland suffers, with the size of the public sector increasing while the private sector decreases.

And all that got me wondering, how do all those libertarians who voted for Obama feel right now?

Delivering the GOP response to the president’s radio address, the man who succeeded John Kerry as the junior Senator from Massachusetts–after that latter had served a record 25 years in the position, Scott Brown, called Obama out for not keeping his promises, you know to focus on what he was elected to do and not keeping pushing health care.

The delivery may note be great, but the message is clear: President Obama is not keeping his campaign promises by pushing a massive health care overhaul crafted behind closed doors when people are still losing their jobs:

Maybe you remember what President Obama promised in his State of the Union address. He said he was going to finally focus on jobs and the economy for the remainder of this year. I applauded him for that. Well, here it is, it’s almost spring. And what is he out there talking about again? That same 2,700-page, multi-trillion dollar health care legislation.

So, an entire year has gone to waste. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the President still hasn’t gotten the message.

Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway. Their attitude shows Washington at its very worst – the presumption that they know best, and they’re going to get their way whether the American people like it or not.

And, when politicians start thinking like that, they don’t let anything get in their way – not public opinion, not the rules of fair play, not even their own promises.

They pledged transparency. Instead, we have a health care bill tainted by secrecy, concealed cost, and full of backroom deals– and that’’s just not right. They should do better. The American people expect more.

Ed Morrissey calls this a “scathing assessment of the Democratic machinations to pass ObamaCare.” I agree.

(H/t for video: Gateway Pundit)

Donald Sensing (via Instapundit) observes:

Last month’s deficit of $221 billion was 37 percent larger than the entire year’s deficit of 2007 of $161 billion. But government does not produce wealth.

If I understand the budgetary process correctly, FY 2007 was the last year in which a Republican Congress passed the budget.  And to think liberals chide us conservatives for criticizing Obama’s spending spree while alleging we were silent during the Bush years.  Silent we surely were not even as the overspending weren’t nearly so bad.

Read the whole thing to see just how our government continues to grow while the private sector shrinks.

Since I had only driven by the banners on West Hollywood lamp posts two times (once in each direction) yesterday before posting on how my city is honoring Left-Wing Women’s Activist History Month, I decided to take a break from reading about the Iliad to do a very un-LA thing and take a leisurely stroll down Santa Monica Boulevard to review the various banners.

They had Zelda Gilroy, a former California state Senator, but not Dianne Feinstein, California’s senior United States Senator and a woman of some accomplishment, having held her city together when its Mayor and a City Supervisor were shot down in 1978.  The Women’s Advisory Board to the City of West Hollywood couldn’t find anyone who had achieved anything before the late Nineteenth Century.  No Abigail Adams, no Dolley Madison.  No George Eliot or Jane Austen.

Most of them featured on the banners were activists and none of them activists for liberty, most activists for “rights.”  Let’s take a gander at some of the women honored.

Basically, the City of West Hollywood has used our tax dollars to promote the political agenda of the far left.  This would be a fine exercise of freedom if the City were not a public entity.

This does provide a window into the mindset.  To the folks our City Council has tapped for its Women’s Advisory Group, the women who make history are not so much those who have accomplished great deeds, but have militated for “rights”.

This is not to belittle some of these ladies’ accomplishments for some were indeed pioneers worthy of recognition.  This is merely to point out a skewed view of the world.  Some may have quibbled about my inclusion of Phyllis Schlafly in my prior post, but the point is that she has actually accomplished something in much of the same manner as the women this city honors. 

And we learn that they’re not honoring these activists’ gender as much as their ideology, appropriate perhaps for a union hall or party headquarters, but not on a public street where if they honor women of accomplishment from one side of the political aisle, they need also consider the other.

Just received a link to this from a reader:

If you want to know why Jennifer Rubin is one of my favorite blogresses, just read this piece she posted yesterday on Obama, The Endless Campaign.

UPDATE:  Okay, I probably should say why the piece struck me as being so insightful.  Remember how the Democrat campaigned as being a new kind of post-partisan president?  And then just look at how he’s governed, constantly attacking Republicans, regularly blaming his predecessor for the mess he inherited as if someone forced the job on him–and he hadn’t spent two years campaigning for it.

And we gotta admit, he ran a pretty good campaign and generally came across well on the campaign trail.  So, maybe that’s why he keeps at it, keeps campaigning, that is.  As Rubin writes (and this the essence of her spot-on post):

Obama and his grouchy adviser David Axelrod complain bitterly of the nonstop campaign, the partisanship of Washington, and the nonstop news cycle. But they most obviously are perpetuators of all three, and rely on campaign tactics (attack, attack, attack) in lieu of other skills — reasoned persuasion, real compromise, and legislative craftsmanship. They do it endlessly, campaign that is, because this is what they know and this is what they were good at. That it’s ill-suited to the task at hand and ultimately has diminished the president’s standing seem not to matter. Again and again Obama returns to the stump. What else is he to do? He’s proved unable to convince Blue Dogs of the merits of his bill.

Barack Obama seems obsessed with his opponents because he’s better at running against something than he is at running anything.

Just a few moments ago, while doing cardio at the gym, I looked up at the television monitor in front of me to see the mock-serious face of former high school cheerleader Katie Couric delivering the Administration’s talking points news.  She was all aflutter about the president pushing back his Asian trip to focus on health care.

Soon, she had someone named Reid (flacking for his ol’ Uncle Harry?) “reporting” from the White House lawn.  We saw Nancy Pelosi delivering some remarks and were told she’s very confident she has the votes to pass Obamacare.  All in all, a very upbeat report.

Notice anything missing?  Yep, me too.  They didn’t mention the opposition to the legislation nor the procedural shenanigans Democrats are playing to try to pass it.  No mention that one-time Obamacare supporter Bart Stupak has registered his firm opposition to the Senate bill, promising to vote “No” this time around.  No mention of a Washington Post piece by Democratic pollsters, Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen, ”If Democrats ignore health-care polls, midterms will be costly.”  No mention of what Michelle Malkin reports as the “open-borders caucus [looking] like it’s really going to bolt.”

No one questioned Pelosi’s claim she had the votes.  They tell us she’s happy she is that the president is staying behind to push this bill.  Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey puts the damper on Couric’s, er Pelosi’s, enthusiasm:

[Obama] doesn’t have the votes.  As with Nancy Pelosi’s bravado, the deadline turned out to be a façade.  If they had the votes, the bill would be on the floor now.  Not only do they not have the votes now, it seems likely they won’t have the votes next week, either — which is why Obama’s pushing back his long-awaited trip to Indonesia.

Wonder why they CBS “News” didn’t see fit to quote Morrissey –or any Republican or Administration critic.

No wonder Rush Limbaugh calls the MSM “state-run media.”

If it weren’t for the banners hanging from street lamps along Santa Monica Boulevard in the People’s Socialist Politically Correct Republic of West Hollywood, I wouldn’t know it’s Women’s History Month.  And these banners featured images of a lot of interesting ladies, like Billie Jean King, Zelda Gilroy, Susan Sarandon, Hillary Clinton and Betty Friedan.  Now, I did see a banner of Betty Ford, but given the residents of this town, I would dare say she was probably up there for her clinic as much as her stint as First Lady (to a Republican President), but, well, there just weren’t any other identifiable conservatives or Republicans.

You know, like, well, the first (and so far only) female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the current Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, the first female Ambassador the United Nations, the first African-American woman Secretary of State, the first woman Governor of Alaska or the woman who led a successful grassroots movement to prevent the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Guess none of them accomplished nearly as much as did Susan Sarandon.

Now, I only paid attention to the banners twice (once heading west and the other time heading east) as I drove by today, so may have missed these great women.  If you live in in West Hollywood, please let me know if you can find any right-of-center women honored on our city’s main thoroughfare.

So, earlier this morning, I was watching portions of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s brief press availability where she “said the House would take as long as it needed” to pass the health care overhaul. I translated that as, “We don’t have the votes and don’t know when we’ll get them.”

As I switched off the TV, I realized that a musical rendition of her statement already existed.

Methinks though that the bill is only alive in Mrs. Pelosi’s imagination — and that of the president.