A reader recently e-mailed me a fact sheet about former Congressman Tom Campbell’s “Troublesome Record on Israel.”  As I review it and start confirming some of the points on the list, I can’t help thinking of the occasional anti-Semitic tracts (or tracts with thinly veiled anti-Semitism) I have come across in encountering some people in, (but mostly on the fringes of) libertarian pockets of the conservative movement.

It always seemed a bizarre thing that libertarians could harbor such conspiracy theories against followers of a certain faith, but a noticeable number do.  Indeed, most of the libertarians (and libertarian-inclined conservatives) I meet are not only the most tolerant individuals, but also the most independent-minded as well, less disposed to judging someone by his “external” characteristics (race, girth, religion, ethnicity) and more likely to judge him by his capacity for independent thought and his ability to engage in spirited discourse.

But, there are some nuts.  And Campbell, a very principled libertarian when discussing matters of domestic policy, with his record on Israel, comes to resemble many of them.  Indeed, Ron Paul, considering a folk hero, in many libertarian circles, also has a troubling past.  Studying newsletters that 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul once penned and edited, James Kirchick found:

The rhetoric when it came to Jews was little better. The newsletters display an obsession with Israel; no other country is mentioned more often in the editions I saw, or with more vitriol. A 1987 issue of Paul’s Investment Letter called Israel “an aggressive, national socialist state,” and a 1990 newsletter discussed the “tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise.” Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, “Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little.”

While I highly doubt Campbell himself is anti-Semitic, he has a very troublesome record on Israel and associates with many Jew-hating individuals.  Campbell can show that he is not a member of this crowd by putting forward a platform on Israel more consistent with a conservative national security policy in the wake of 9/11 and popular support for the Jewish State. (more…)

Seems passage of Obamacare has worked wonders for the Democrats’ public image.  According to Gallup

Americans’ favorable rating of the Democratic Party dropped to 41% in a late MarchUSA Today/Gallup poll, the lowest point in the 18-year history of this measure. Favorable impressions of the Republican Party are now at 42%, thus closing the gap between the two parties’ images that has prevailed for the past four years.

(H/t:  Jennifer Rubin.)

*but just barely.  Think how the GOP image might improve if the RNC chair were spending more time promoting the party  than engaging in damage control.

Barney Frank May be Retiring.

Outgoing Justice John Paul Stevens lacks the class of former Justice Byron White.  That latter jurist, appointed to the Supreme Court by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, waited until another Democrat took office to retire.  Even though he had become one of the court’s most conservative members, he thought that he owed it to his party.  Stevens, by contrast, although appointed by a Republican, is perhaps the most liberal member of the current court.

All that said, there is no requirement that a member of the U.S. Supreme Court keep the seat in his party, but that is something to keep in mind.

In the long term, his retirement helps the Democrats and their liberal ideology.  In the short term, it helps the GOP.  I say this because I’m assuming based on Obama’s record in office that he will tap a liberal justice to replace the outgoing Justice.  Perhaps, he’ll appoint someone like Pam Karlan, to the left in judicial matters, to be sure, but possessing a fine intellect.  Her presence on the bench would elevate the debates.  And her skill as a writer plus her wit would make court opinions, hers at least, well worth reading.

You see, by appointing a liberal to the bench, especially so close to the 2010 elections when so many vulnerable Democrats are up for reelection, he forces them to vote on a nominee who will likely be in step with the West Wing crowd, but out of step with the American people.

Via Glenn Reynolds, we get this “understatement” from Doug Mataconis: “Given the political climate, the fact that this is an election year, and the record we already have from the Sotomayor hearings last year, I think we can expect that this will be a very politically charged nomination process.”

Stupak is out.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

Via the Plum Line, I caught something on the DailyKos with which, well, I pretty much agree.   About Glenn Beck’s less than stellar ratings, Jed Lewison writes:

Remember, first and foremost Glenn Beck sees himself as a showman and he’ll stop at nothing to boost ratings.

Beck is a swing-for-the-fences kind of guy, and so far he’s generally connected, delivering impressive short-term spikes in his audience. But just like a product that goes on sale too often, there’s a limit to the number of swings Beck can take before he cheapens the value of his broadcast.

Well, Rush Limbaugh is a showman too and he’s done very well, very, very well his medium over a period of twenty years.  Not considering that example, Lewison suggests that Beck’s “career will look like that of Morton Downey Jr., who exploded onto the scene in the 1980s, imploding before the decade was out.”

Maybe Beck’ll be another Limbaugh, but I doubt it.  Here’s why.  I pretty much agree with Beck and love the reverence he shows for the founders and their ideas.  So, naturally, I should love his show.  But, whenever I try to watch, I find myself, well, turned off.  He’s a little too over-the-top.  If he turns this conservative off, he’s probably going to antagonize people of a more moderate persuasion.

Limbaugh, by contrast, has a self-deprecating humor that Beck lacks.  The latter just isn’t as funny as Rush.  In fact, he seems a lot angrier.  Rush may be portrayed as angry, but whenever I’ve listened, he always seems to be having fun.  I don’t get that sense from Beck.

That said, anemic though Beck’s ratings may be (in Lewison’s book), he’s head and shoulders ahead of the competition.  In his time slot, he attracts twice the audience of his competitors on other TV news networks. . . . combined.

Welcome Instapundit Readers!

At a time when the Jewish State is gaining favor with the American people, it is losing favor with the American president.  About six weeks ago, Gallup found, “For the first time since 1991, more than 6 in 10 Americans — 63% — say their sympathies in the Middle East situation lie more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians.”

But, while the American people have been focusing on the health care debate and worrying about the employment situation, the Obama Administration has been quietly pulling the rug out from under our Israeli allies, the staunchest supporter of democracy and opponent of terrorism in the Middle East.

The president delivered an ultimatum to the Israeli Prime Minister, leaving him to cool his heels while he went off to have dinner; that is, the American leader who was discourteous to the leader of a sovereign nation and an ally.  Netanyahu wouldn’t accept Obama’s demands.  Never before has a U.S. President made such demands of an ally, much less expected him to act exactly as the American leader told him.  He treated him a leader would treat an enemy defeated in a contest of arms.

And it’s been reported that, “The United States has diverted a shipment of bunker-busters designated for Israel“:

Officials said the U.S. military was ordered to divert a shipment of smart bunker-buster bombs from Israel to a military base in Diego Garcia. They said the shipment of 387 smart munitions had been slated to join pre-positioned U.S. military equipment in Israel Air Force bases.

Yesterday, we learned, “The Obama administration is now denying U.S. visas to Israeli scientists who work at that nation’s Dimona nuclear reactor.”  There seems no purpose to this action, save to thumb his nose at the Jewish State.

Perhaps, we might have learned of the Democrat’s antipathy to Israel during the campaign had the LA Times released a video of a “2003 banquet during which Obama, who was then an Illinois state senator, spoke of his relationship with Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American Orientalist who is known for his frequent criticism of Israel“.

The president seems closer to the views of that radical Palestinian that to those of the people he serves. (more…)

So I was very excited as I boarded the plane in Charlotte this afternoon, bound for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans.

But, as our plane sat in line to takeoff I began to break out in a sweat. I mean shirt-drenching time.

And, as we pulled around, faced south and the engines revved — I promptly projectile vomited all over myself, my iPhone, Kindle and the bulkhead wall. Sorry to be graphic, but I want you to share the experience.

I seemed to recover until the wheels hit the ground in NOLA. Then I became faint and disoriented — to the point that I asked for EMTs. After being given some oxygen (no, really) — I rallied enough to make it to my downtown hotel.

My only venture out in the past 6 hours was to Urgent Care cuz I thought I had the Pig Flu. Diagnosis: Stomach virus that’s hit the Southeast.

I’m telling you all this because I missed the start of the SRLC and my two favorite GOP divas — Liz Cheney & Mary Matalin.

If I survive the night, I’m dragging myself to the Hilton to see Sarah. (We really don’t even need to use her last name, do we?)

PatriotPartner just landed so he’ll blog for me if I don’t wake up in the morning.

Such a drama queen, aren’t I?

Yesterday on his blog, Mickey Kaus, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, noted how the state Democratic Party is excluding him from a berth at their upcoming convention because they deem him not to be a viable candidate:

If you disagree with the California Democratic Party’s decision to apply an amorphous “viability” test to deny candidates like …well, me, a chance to even be heard at the party convention,please email CDP Executive Director Shawnda Westly to inform her of your views. Her email is

shawnda@cadem.org

(Via: Glenn Reynolds.)

As per that request (in a bit of a rush), I did just that.

Dear Ms. Westly,

I am a lifelong Republican who has never voted Democratic in a statewide race since moving to California in 1999.  Should Mr. Kaus win the Democratic nomination  for U.S. Senate and Tom Campbell the Republican, I will likely vote Democratic in that race given my qualms about Mr. Campbell’s associations.

But, given Mrs. Boxer’s absence of accomplishment this past 18 years as well as her mean-spirited partisanship, I could never vote for her.  Never.

If you want to make your party more viable to a partisan Republican who disagrees with Mr. Kaus about 60-76% of the time, but would vote for him over a certain Republican, you should reconsider your decision.  There are many more Republicans like myself who disagree with Mickey Kaus, but respect him.  They might join me in voting Democratic should he be your party’s nominee.  And I daresay in a Republican year, this could make the difference in a close election.

Fine, say he’s not viable.  With Mrs. Boxer’s high negatives, you’re giving my party the best shot in years to take a California Senate seat, given the anti-incumbent mood.  With Kaus as your party’s nominee, the likelihood of keeping the seat in Democratic hands grows exponentially.

All the best, Daniel Blatt (West Hollywood)

This is a nice surprise.  Especially since we’ve been a bit dry on Instapundit links so far in 2010.  (Glenn…. where are you, Glenn???)

As always, thanks to our readers.  And please spread the word.  And also please do consider following me on Twitter.  I do a lot more of my trademark snark-filled smackdowns on Twitter.  140 Characters is my kinda space.

Oh, did I mention we could use an Instapundit hit?  Maybe this weekend when I’m at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference?  Everyone grab a druid priest and rub his head for good luck.  Or something.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

No, I’m not going to Barney Frank’s Florida condo.  Shame on you people!

Actually I’m bound for New Orleans, Louisiana to report on and envelop myself in the Southern Republican Leadership Council.  I’m hoping it is like CPAC but with more Southern food.

I’ll be reporting from inside at Bloggers’ Lounge later tonight.  Four great speakers lead off the program tonight:  Mary Matalin, Liz Cheney, JC Watts & Newt Gingrich.  Hmmm, Watts/Cheney… 2012 anyone?

So watch this space later today for reports of N’awlins.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

About the “Uncle Tom” slur hurled at African-American Tea Party protesters, James Taranto writes:

No white American today suffers the indignity of being labeled a “traitor” to his race; the supposedly liberal assumption is that blacks, and only blacks, are expected to think a certain way because of the color of their skin.

Sound familiar?  To gay conservatives, it should.  Seems, at one point or another, we’ve all encountered the supposedly liberal assumption that gay people are expected to think a certain way because of our sexual orientation.

(H/t:  Instapundit.)

Last month, we reported that the junior Senator from California, enjoying a 51% unfavorable rating from her Golden State constituents,

. . . joined her fellow Senate Democrats in blocking her Oklahoma colleague Tom Coburn’s amendment to “prevent convicted child molesters and rapists from getting reimbursed by the government for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction“.

While our critics faulted the post, calling the Coburn amendment, for example, “a nasty, dirty tactic“, seems that good man had a point.  Over at the Washington Examiner, Susan Ferrechio alerts us to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) study of the matter:

Coburn asked the CRS to look into whether convicted sex offenders can get taxpayer-funded coverage for erectile dysfunction medication under the new health care law and CRS’s response indicates they are eligible for those benefits.

According to CRS, the new health care law includes nothing “which would require qualified health plans to limit the type of benefits that can be offered based on the plan beneficiary’s prior criminal convictions. Additionally, there do not appear to be any provisions that would specifically restrict qualified health plans’ coverage of drugs prescribed to treat ED.”

The CRS goes further to state specifically that “a convicted rapist, child molester, or other sex offender who is not incarcerated would not appear to be excluded from enrolling in a qualified health plan offered through an American Health Benefit Exchange in their state solely because of that conviction.”

The good and gracious Oklahoman had a point.  And in trying to get a “clean” bill by toeing her party line, Barbara Boxer ended up blocking a measure which could have prevented her much vaunted heath care bill from paying for using taxpayer funds to treat their ED (erectile dysfunction).

The original was better.  Both of them.

And have you seen this:

I’ll not bother to comment, as the clear bias and completely unsubtle insinuation speaks for itself: “Can McVeigh’s words help us understand today’s anti-government extremists?”

Paging Dr. Alinksy.

Anybody like to defend MSNBC?
(h/t, NewsBusters)

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

A million thanks to commenter rodney for the following link:

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

This ASSociated Press story is mindboggling.  Not only because of the content, but because the AP writer was allowed to write it and it was published.  I guess sometimes the Kremlin does allow the truth to leak out.  I have to wonder why…

Anyway, if you think the economy is good because of Wall Street…. think again, mate.

The U-3 unemployment figure of 9.7% is a palatable gauge of unemployment designed to make Wall Street happy, or so you would think. Looking at the U-3 numbers it becomes obvious that the real bull market is not in equities, but in unemployment (see chart below).

However, the real unemployment rate, even by the standards of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is much higher. The U-6 unemployment number, as the real data is called, is at 17.5%, within 0.5% of its all-time high. This figure includes discouraged workers who’ve stopped looking, marginally attached workers, and workers that are forced to work part-time because full-time jobs are not available.

The post 2007 recession has eliminated 8.4 million jobs and rendered 15.7 million American’s jobless.

The mere fact that the palatable version of the unemployment rate has remained at 9.7% for three straight months, has Wall Street cheering.

Before chiming in, consider what it will take to simply get back to a normal unemployment rate of 5%. This is mindboggling.

The current labor force of 154 million will increase by about 1.8 million over each of the next five years because of ‘newbies’ entering the job market. By 2014, the labor force will be around 163 million. A 5% U-3 (not U-6) unemployment rate would equate to 8.15 million workers without a job.

7.55 million jobs will have to be created to reduce the number of job-less workers from today’s 15.7 million to 8.15 million. To accomplish this, there would have to be 125,833 jobs created each and every month over the next five years with no jobs lost. 

The average monthly job growth over the past 10 years has been about 50,000. The average monthly job growth over the past 20 years has been about 90,000. Keep in mind that the 1990 – 2010 timeframe hosted the biggest bull market and economic expansion in history.

It is worth repeating:  7.55 million jobs will have to be created to reduce the number of job-less workers from today’s 15.7 million to 8.15 million. To accomplish this, there would have to be 125,833 jobs created each and every month over the next five years with no jobs lost.

Reagan would have cut taxes and eased regulations on small and medium-sized businesses — the mainstay of American middle class jobs.  What does Obama do to the middle class?  Borrows against our future, taxes us into oblivion with hidden healthcare taxes and higher premiums and increases the power of the EPA to regulate every part of an individual and business’ comings and goings. 

Barry — that ain’t gonna spur 126,000 jobs a month, I assure you.  Folks we are in some serious shit.  And it sure the hell isn’t Bush’s fault.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Although I haven’t read it yet, I have met the author and we have become fast blog-buddies.  Andrew Ian Dodge and I were on a panel together at CPAC.  He’s a great and interesting guy and a mover and shaker in the Tea Party Movement.

And his book, “And Glory” does sound like a good one!

The year is 2034. Power lies in Europe with the bureaucrats in Brussels and London is the centre for the Western Provinces.

The Supremo Manipulator of this conglomerate of nations is Pius. With no religious connections and a diminishing hold on power the Union is sustained by nepotism, violence and musical chairs of political appointees. The disintegration of the Union is imminent.

Rob, an English tech nerd together with his accomplice David, have to use their cyborg intelligence to survive in this oppressive Euro society in the Western Provinces. The assassination of Teresa, Rob’s girlfriend, and a busload of tourists along with the murder of a Czech student at Hull European University, provide the catalyst for Rob and David’s dangerous involvement. Together with their minders, Michaela and Kiara, they head full speed into their deadly adventure. Death is catching.

With a touch of humor, a satirical political edge, characters that you come to know well and a flowing writing style take the reader through a techno-thriller deep into the 21st century. We see the ambivalence of the revolutionaries, who never intended serious action, faced with orders to destroy and kill. Europe will never be the same again …

This kind of story is right up my alley.  Time to go download it for my Kindle!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE:  Weird!  Nick and I were channeling each other today…. I wrote this post first thing in the AM, then the ‘puter crashed.  But I think it is a nice compliment to Nick’s post on the same subject.

============

Since we have a President who has a chronic habit of over-promising and under-delivering, I’m surprised this sentiment has taken so long to bubble up!

Two weeks after President Barack Obama signed the big health care overhaul into law, Americans are struggling to understand how — and when — the sweeping measure will affect them.

Questions reflecting confusion have flooded insurance companies, doctors’ offices, human resources departments and business groups.

“They’re saying, ‘Where do we get the free Obama care, and how do I sign up for that?’ ” said Carrie McLean, a licensed agent for eHealthInsurance.com. The California-based company sells coverage from 185 health insurance carriers in 50 states.

As part of the paying-takes-most-of-my-time job, I have to read up on the new healthcare law.  There are some things I am still discovering and one provision in particular (yep, a new payroll TAX that the MSM and White House haven’t mentioned) that I’ll be writing about shortly.

Remember, this is what Obama voters asked for:  Free mortgages, free healthcare, free child care.  There are many one-on-one stories told to me personally of Obama voters who expected just that.   The other majority Obama voters — you know — the fawning yoot and the $250,000< earners — are the ones PAYING for the free stuff expectation.  Talk about self-loathing!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

We are all, well, most of us are at least, aware of how how some on the left question the sincerity of the Tea Party protesters, wondering why we didn’t protest in the George W. Bush era even as that Republican president failed to hold the line on domestic spending.

Well, I had a thought about this while editing the chapter of my dissertation that I just sent in.  First, to be sure, we were grumbling about the spending, criticizing it on this blog as our fellows on the right were taking elected Republicans to task in other places.  Many of us, including yours truly, attributed Republican losses in 2006 and 2008 to the party’s failure to hold the line on spending.  But, no, we didn’t take to the streets.

So, here’s my thought:  Under Bush, we were dealing with a manager who had a drinking problem, using company funds for his three drink a day habit.  So, when his contract is up, we interview new guys for the job.  This one guy, not much experience, but great smile and presence, says he knows about the old guy’s drinking problem and promises a net drinking cut.  But, as soon as he gets the job, he starts drinking three bottles a day.