Perhaps because of the clutter of my apartment and the commotion in my (adopted) home town, the thing I most love about a cross country drive is moving rapidly across the open spaces of our great nation.  While I frequently listen to books on CD as I drive, sometimes I’ll switch off the stereo and let my thoughts wonder.  Oftentimes, it is the ideas expressed or images evoked in the narratives I hear which inspire me.

Well, those thoughts only seem to come when the traffic flows.  And after some tense driving to get out of Chicagoland, a pleasant drive across northern Indiana and northwestern Ohio helped set my mind to rambling.  I hardly listened to the Barnes and Noble Portable Professor “Course,” When Gods Walked the Earth: Myths of Ancient Greece that I love so much and have listened to before (even as I disagree with some of lecturer Peter Meineck’s interpretations of some myths).

All until I hit bumper to bumper traffic, worse than my experience in LA last Friday in north central Ohio, the state (but not the region where I was born and grew up).  I thought there had been a major accident that was difficult to clear.  But, no, it was just very poorly managed road construction.

So, poorly was it managed that twice, I turned off the engine, got out of the car walked around.  I wasn’t the only one.

Now, I could blame this on the state’s Democratic Governor, but recall that in my 2003 cross country drive, I encountered the same poorly managed road construction (though on I-71, not I-80).  That time, though, we didn’t stop long enough to allow me to get up and walk around.  The state had a Republican Governor back in ’03. (more…)

While Nick and I disagree on “Draw Mohammed Day,” we do agree in wondering at the “need” of gay activists (and their acolytes) to label everyone who disagrees with some form of the word, “hate.”

And yet, these very people harbor the greatest degree of animus against conservatives, Republicans and, well, anyone who disagrees with them, you know the people they smear as haters.*

Projection anyone? (more…)

Dining with a few Chicago readers as well as in my correspondence with readers who couldn’t make our dinner Wednesday night, I hear the stories, as only natives of the Windy City can tell, of how wonderful their city it is, yet how corrupt its officials.  (Kind of like Angelenos singing the praise of our burg, while shaking our heads at some of the antics of our fellows.)

With their words in my head as I headed east on the 80 Thursday morning, a thought occurred to me.  And not for the first time.  How did the media let Barack Obama get away with styling himself as a “new kind of politician” when he had cut his political teeth in a city known for its corruption and double-dealing?

Why didn’t anyone in the MSM ask him how he could be such a noble figure in politics, given this background?  And if he had such a sterling political character, why didn’t they ask him to just just how he stood up to the corruption endemic to Chicago and to identify the double-dealing Cook County officials he helped bring down?

In the past few days, Nick and I have come to (metaphorical) blows over our difference son “Draw Mohammed Day.”  We did have a good conversation last night over the phone where we resolved, with each making a bit of sacrifice, to handle the situation as we did yesterday.

And since I think Nick is a swell fellow, when, before my drive went south (metaphorically not geographically) today, I called him to share an insight I was sure he would enjoy.  (It’s always nice to agree than disagree with your friends.)  Because of the connection, he didn’t hear everything I had to say, but he did get the gist of it.

So, now comfortably ensconced in my hotel, let me elaborate.  As our readers know, I take offense at Draw Mohammed Day because it gratuitously mocks religion — just as I have long taken offensive at the juvenile antics of the gay men who style themselves the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” dressing up as nuns and rollerblading around on Pride Day.

I wonder why is it that all too many in our community condone (celebrate even) this mockery of the Catholic faith, yet remain silent on a faith which persecutes people like us?  Why don’t we those who would mock Catholicism (whose extremists may judge homosexuality harshly), but refrain from mocking Islam (whose extremists murder homosexuals)?

I just arrived at my hotel in Pennsylvania after perhaps the worst driving day on my trip — more on that anon — to learn that the Senate had passed a banking bill, allegedly to curb Wall Street abuses.  I fear from what I have read of earlier drafts of the legislation that it will place a greater burden on smaller banks, particularly those that did not contribute to the financial meltdown, enterprises which weathered the storm quite well because they did not make risky loans.

There was one paragraph in the article on the bill’s passage that caught my eye and showed that the Democrats pushing the legislation and the four Republicans who unwisely voted for it are just not serious about getting at the real cause of the meltdown:

For all its breadth, the bill stopped short of taking on the nation’s giant mortgage companies, the government-affiliated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Democrats feared that incorporating massive housing policy into the bill would have sunk it.

It would have sunk the bill if Democrats addressed the root cause of our late problems!   Now, Congress has empowered the government ever more, creating additional layers of bureaucracy while ignoring the entities at the crux of the late crisis.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  Begging to differ with this post based on its original title, V the K  says the bill is “worse than grandstanding”:

1. It prohibits or severely restricts banks from engaging in profitable activities.

2. It gives the Government the power to take over banks when they become unprofitable.

He’s right.  

This bill is worse than grandstanding.  It’s bad policy grown out of grandstanding.  So, I changed the title to reflect that.

I received a great phone call from Dan, who’s on the road today, and I am not sure if my signal was bad or if there was other interferance (it was beautiful in Colorado today, and I was driving with the windows down), but best I could tell, he was making this excellent point:

It’s curious that one of our more outlandish and childish commenters recommended the following (vis-a-vis Everybody Draw Muhammed Day):

[W]e target the evangelicals that don’t want gays to get married and stage a “Take Your Gay Partner to the Parking Lot of an Evangelical Church Just After Services are Letting Out and Make Out With Them Day.”

Oh, so bold. The point that (I think*) Dan was making was that, while there are thousands of people across America today who are actually putting their own safety at risk by drawing Muhammed, how far is the average gay Leftist willing to go to pull for his own issues? Which is to say, if our Leftist friends were, indeed, to make out with thier partners in the parking lot of a Christian church, at what risk would they be putting themselves?

Surely they risk looking stupid. But that’s never seemed to bother them. Likely they’d be ridiculed. But do they actually think that the “risks” they take by pulling such a stunt put them on the same level as Theo Van Gogh or Lars Vilks? Or for that matter, any of the “artists” participating today?

Tell you what, you’re so bold…take your make-out session to your local mosque, and we’ll talk about it.

* Seriously, I’m not sure…we had to cut our conversation short, so apologies to you, Dan, if this isn’t what you meant to say, but if not, thanks for the great idea

- Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from a Secret Undisclosed Alternate HQ

I have watched this video of Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA4) three times and still have yet to find anything to which I object. (Transcript follows the jump.)

As with my new fat best friend, here’s a guy who says what needs to be said:

(more…)

I must admit, I’m stunned….

CNN.com Cover Story:  “My Take: Everyone chalk Mohammed?”

There is a difference between making fun of religious or other ideas on a TV show that you can turn off, and doing it out in a public square where those likely to take offense simply can’t avoid it. These chalk drawings are not a seminar on free speech; they are the atheist equivalent of the campus sidewalk preachers who used to irk me back in college. This is not even “Piss Christ,” Andres Serrano’s controversial 1987 photograph of a crucifix in urine. It is more like filling Dixie cups with yellow water and mini crucifixes and putting them on the ground all over town. Could you do it legally? Of course. Should you?

In Muslim culture, there is a longstanding tradition that to put something on the ground, where people step on it, is “the ultimate diss,” indicating “I hate you, you disgust me,” as I was told by Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America

To this add the fact that after 9/11 hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims and “those perceived to be Muslim” increased 1,700 percent in the United States, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. Large numbers of innocent Muslims in the U.S. have been harmed or intimidated simply because they share a religious tradition with extremists. Can we reasonably suggest they not be reminded of this upon seeing their prophet, the most revered and admired person in their cultural tradition, underfoot?

CNN iReport -

There is a huge fight on the internet especially facebook about May 20th Draw Muhammad Day. I have thought long and hard about whether to draw Muhammad and I have decided that I will. I do not think people of certian religions should be able to tell other people not of that religion what they can and cannot do. I do not draw Muhammad out of malice but out of protest because I do not think it is acceptable for our artist to recieve death threats over cartoons. I understand that drawing Muhammad is offensive but many things in America are offensive. Republican and Democrats make signs all the time that are offensive too each other this is free speech to be able to say and expression our opinions to people we do not agree with. Drawing Muhammad does not constitute hate. I am doing this neither out of Malice or hate. If there are terrorist acts because of people drawing pictures I hope that America will wake up and see that people are killing over cartoons and that we should not give up freedom for security.

Maybe Nick was right — if CNN wakes up, perhaps today did change history.  Time shall tell.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Since publik skools don’t seem to teach the importance of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of American liberty…then May 20, 1775 is certainly one date most folks probably haven’t heard of.

It just so happens that I live in Mecklenburg County, NC — the original home of American Independence. I’ve often wondered if fate somehow brought me here….

Here’s the story of Meck Dec:

Today’s a day when some people stop to celebrate a document that nobody can seem to find. This is Meck Dec Day. May 20, 1775 is the day when the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was said to be enacted here in Charlotte. It pre-dates the Declaration of Independence by more than a year. We here in North Carolina are so proud of the Meck Dec, we’ve even put the date of its alleged signing on the state flag.

We say alleged because nobody has ever actually found the Meck Dec. In fact, there’s no real evidence that it ever existed. Back in 1775, a rider named Capt. James Jack says he took the Meck Dec from Charlotte to the Continental Congress, but there’s no other documentation that he actually did it.

Please note I started writing this before Nick’s post went up, completing it only after I saw it on the blog.  And due to time constraints, won’t have time to address his points directly.  

As some of our readers know, while we at GayPatriot usually agree on the big issues of the day, we have a difference of opinion on whether or not to participate in Draw Mohammed Day.

I believe this blog should not participate and out of respect for pious Muslims who do not use their faith to intimidate “non-believers”, assault critics, murder innocents, or otherwise attack Western civilization, we should not defy a central tenet of that faith, not depicting their prophet visually.  I believe we should show the same respect for any faith.  And wonder why it is that some who criticize this project would, in different circumstances, mock Catholics or deride Mormons.

Instead of attempting to spit in the eye of an entire faith, which appears to be the purpose of this stunt, I believe we need stand up for those assaulted for speaking their minds.  And wonder why the liberal civility police (who neglected their role in the Bush Administration) are more ready to condemn Tea Party protesters because they (the “civility police”) believe their rhetoric leads to violence, but are reluctant to climb those who actually engage in such violent acts or actually call for the death of a people.

That said, I believe the aforementioned project is a juvenile stunt, no different from some staged by the gay left.  It will be counterproductive, doing more harm than good, possibly offending those most victimized by radical Islam–moderate Muslims.

Well, I lost the battle to have this blog keep out of this controversy, but in the process of making my case, did engage in a great discussion with Bruce and Nick on the idea.  Given my time constraints, I won’t be able to present as thoughtful a post as I would like, so instead, I’ll simply, belong the “jump,” post (and edit) part of my e-mail to Bruce on the matter. (more…)

Good Lord. I thought today would never come. No, seriously, I actually believed the Apocalypse might occur before we chose, as a civilization, to rise up and together pronounce to those who would kill us for doing so, that we will, in fact, draw a picture of someone. And you wouldn’t believe what Bruce, Dan, and I went though to get here today (more on that after the jump)*.

Imagine: We’ve mapped the human genome. One dozen men have been on the moon. The 15,000 lines of the Iliad and the 12,000 lines of the Odyssey can fit onto a device as small as the palm of your hand. Gigantic metallic cylinders that weigh 300,000 pounds fly at tens of thousands of feet in the air, carrying 500 people at hundreds of miles per hour to cover continents in a matter of just a couple hours…and do so hundreds of times every day.

Oh, AND, by the way, if you draw a picture of Muhammed, someone will want to kill you.

Really? Seriously? In 2010? Yes.

When I first heard about Everybody Draw Muhammed Day and blogged on it last month, I thought it was a brilliant idea. At the time, I considered “including a feather boa and fabulous shoes” in my depiction. The more I thought about it, and the more I read readers’ comments, and those of my colleague, Dan, I realized that such flamboyance might send the wrong signal: That I was deliberately and gratuitously trying to insult all Muslims. While some clearly are trying to do this, I think that’d be needlessly disrespectful, and definitely self-defeating. As I perused the Web and read others’ thoughts on the issue, what I came to realize was that any depiction of Muhammed would be considered a capital offense by an Islamist extremist. So, I figured, why purposefully alienate moderate Muslims, who, while they may be put off by such a display, are not the direct cause of trouble?

After all, it’s these sane and sober Muslims who must look at their coreligionists murder cartoonists, burn their houses down, stab film-makers to death in cold blood, cause authors to go underground indefinitely, OH, and fly planes into buildings, send women into busy marketplaces as suicide bombers, saw the heads off of Wall Street Journal journalists (I could go on…) and feel themselves hopeless that these are the only faces of Islam that most of the world sees. Why agitate them?

Why? Well, here’s why:

I’m a Roman Catholic. About a thousand years ago, my church engaged on a 200-year journey one might euphemistically call “proselytization”. This “evangelization” came down to this: Become Catholic or die (Sorry, no “cake” option). Standing up and saying that you didn’t agree with the Pope was, basically, grounds for death (please, by the way, repent as you expire…it’s good for our numbers). Now, certainly, many of my coreligionists at the time were aghast at such a display of naked aggression against blasphemers. How many of them stood up? Clearly not enough at the time. Now consider this (and yes, I’m well aware of the irony about to be displayed by virtue of the players involved in the following analogy): Perhaps there were Moors who looked at all of this and said, “Well, you know, what those Catholics are doing is pretty awful. We should stand up against their aggression and do all we have in our power to defeat them. Oh, but let’s not needlessly insult them in the process. After all, those sensible Catholics (who, surely represent the majority of that peaceful religion) are the allies we need. Pointing out and displaying the idiocy behind the “Blasphemy = Execution” policy will only provoke them and make our battle more difficult. Oh, and let’s also not say that we disagree with the dogma of Papal Infallibility. Let’s just play along as if that’s not nuts. After all, those hearts and minds—regardless of how warped they may be—are valuable to us in our struggle. Best to not rock that proverbial boat, and let those Catholics continue to believe they’re above any sort of criticism. If we only kill the really crazy ones, I’m sure the rest of them will agree with us that their getting so upset over minor things like doubting the Pope’s infallibility will never boil up as long as we kill just the ones who take it that far.”

The point behind Everybody Draw Muhammed Day is not about sensitivities. It’s not about recklessly and needlessly and unemotionally insulting someone. It’s about saying to Muslims: This is 2010. You’re entitled to be offended and even get angry if someone insults your religion. You’re entitled to call them terrible names and damn them to hell. You’re entitled to curse them and (if you feel it’s productive) take and eye for a metaphorical eye by similarly insulting their religion. But you’re NOT entitled to kill people because of that anger.

I’m a member of the US Military. My job is to defend others, if even with my life. Everybody Draw Muhammed Day is, in effect to a degree, similar. I will once again quote Mark Steyn and say that he put it better than I ever could have, regarding the original cartoons in the Danish newspaper:

The minute there were multimillion-dollar bounties on those cartoonists’ heads, The Times of London and Le Monde and The Washington Post and all the rest should have said “this Thursday we’re all publishing all the cartoons. If you want to put bounties on all our heads, you better have a great credit line at the Bank of Jihad. If you want to kill us, you’ll have to kill us all. You can kill ten who are stout-hearted men but you’ll have to kill ten thousand more. We’re standing shoulder to shoulder, and bolder and bolder.”

For me, drawing a picture of Muhammed today is not about poking a stick in the Muslim Community’s eye. It’s not about nakedly and gratuitously insulting people because I can. It’s about throwing oneself on a hand-grenade along with thousands (hopefully) of others so that the jihadists and radical Islamists see that they can’t kill us all. This is our chance to be Daniel Pearl, our chance to be Theo Van Gogh, our chance to be Lars Vilks. They cannot kill us all.

With all that said, here is a link to my drawing of Muhammed.
(more…)

Good morning.  There are a number of important things going on in the world today that warrant note as they all relate to an existential threat to the American Republic, its founding Principles & Documents, and the freedoms we take for granted.  I’m going to touch on a couple of them in this post and my fellow bloggers will hit the topic throughout the day as well.

Today — May 20 — was first mentioned as “Everyone Draw Muhammad Day” (EDMD) to protest and challenge the terroristic treatment of Swedish political cartoonist Lars Vilks.

Vilks, 53, recently was the target of an alleged murder plot that led to the arrests of two American women. He has faced death threats from Islamic extremists since depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a dog in a series of 2007 illustrations. That same year, a bounty was placed on Vilks’s head.

Well, Vilks continues to be targeted by fanatics and his house was torched last week.

The southern Sweden home of Vilks was hit by a suspected arson attack last Friday night, according to the Associated Press. Vilks, who sparked a violent protest Tuesday while speaking at Stockholm’s Uppsala University, was not home at the time of Friday’s attack.

UPDATE: Police have arrested two men in the fire-bomb attack, according to AFP. The suspects, 21 and 19, are Swedish nationals of Kosovar origin who were arrested after personal items were found near the scene, Swedish police said.

Since the attack, Vilks now says he is sleeping elsewhere. “During the day I don’t think it is dangerous because I can keep watch over myself,” Vilks told the Associated Press. “But I have to realize that I can’t be there during the night.”

There are a number of bloggers on the left and the right marking today with various iterations of “Draw Muhammad Day”.  My co-bloggers will cover those activities in other posts here today in their own style.

In the same spirit of celebrating the First Amendment and the valued tradition in America of debating right vs. wrong — I would like to bring to your attention this controversy:  A Mosque Is Planned At The Site of the 9/11 Attacks in NYC.

A group called “ACT for America” is sponsoring this petition drive:

We the undersigned join with millions of Americans who are opposed to the founding of a mosque at the very site where Islamist jihadists destroyed the World Trade Center and took the lives of nearly 3,000 people.

We are opposed to the grotesque symbolism represented by the building of this mosque at “ground zero.” We are especially appalled that those pushing for this mosque have designated its grand opening date for September 11, 2011 – the ten year anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

We are deeply disturbed by the insensitivity to the families of the victims of the 9/11 jihadist attack exhibited by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his supporters. We find it grossly hypocritical that Islamists and their allies repeatedly lecture Americans about the need to be “sensitive” to Muslims while Imam Rauf and his allies practice the height of intolerance and insensitivity through the blatant act of building a mosque at “ground zero.”

We are offended by the views Imam Rauf has expressed about 9/11, such as his conspiratorial theory that Muslims did not perpetrate the 9/11 attack and that America’s policies were partly to blame for the attack. Such views are a slap in the face of the victims and families of 9/11.

We find it repulsive that Imam Rauf and his followers and supporters would seek to build a mosque near ground zero promoting the same Sharia ideology that the 9/11 hijackers used as the justification for their act of unconscionable murder.

Therefore, in deference to the families of the 9/11 victims and their memory, we call upon the elected officials of New York to oppose the building of this mosque near ground zero and for them to urge Feisal Abdul Rauf and his followers to find another location for it.

I encourage everyone to sign the petition and prevent this insult-upon-injury to the victims’ families from 9/11/2001.

So there you go — two hot button topics.  Please debate with civility and keep the vile personal attacks over at the DailyKos and Joe.My.God.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In the latest the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, my gal Carly Fiorina has pulled ahead of Tom Campbell, now edging him 25 to 23.  Chuck DeVore lags in third place.

In the race, as in the gubernatorial contest, undecideds still remain high — with 36% of voters yet to make up their mind.  That suggests the race could go either way.  It would be interesting to see the make-up of those independents.  

This poll is also the best news for Boxer in a long time.  While she has moved up a bit in the polls and is ahead of all three of her potential GOP rivals, she remains below 50%.

I have never liked speed limits on the open road.  They require you to constantly check your speedometer to make sure you’re obeying the law.  You could be drive perfectly safely well above the limit and yet be forced to pay a penalty for unsafe driving.

And this constant checking of your dashboard prevents you from keeping your eyes on the road (where they should be).

Yesterday I was pulled over in western Illinois, just a few miles east of the Mississippi after crossing over from Iowa.  The cop, very polite, told me I had been driving a few miles over the speed limit; I got a warning, not a ticket, but the whole experience was, well, passing strange.  And I think his decision to pull me over had more to do with my California license plate than the velocity of my car.

You see, even when I first spotted the car, people were passing me.  Indeed, the oddest thing about the whole experience is that I noted the cop car when he first passed me (which I then saw as a relief).  As if we were bound up together.

I recall delaying a cell phone call; the cop car prompted me to wonder what was Illinois’ laws on driving while on the phone  Could I dial a cell phone to make a call where I would speak through the blue tooth.  

Not long after considering these questions, I saw the police car which had passed me pull over.  Now, I was ahead of him.  I gradually decelerated, staying in the right lane, maintaining a speed of less than 65.  He wasn’t going to pass me again as I hoped.  I sensed I was in his sights.

Now, the cop was behind me.  I kept checking the Speedometer.  Needle just above 60.  His flashers went on.  No siren.  I pulled over, not panicked, but befuddled.  I expressed as much when he came to my window.  He said I had been going “a few miles over” the speed limit.  He asked me if I were traveling with anyone, mentioning something about a “white car” that he had seen pass by.   (more…)

I had quite the drive today, getting on the wrong freeway in Illinois and getting pulled over for driving 3-4 miles an hour above the speed limit (more on that in my next post).

The real highlight of the evening was a dinner with some of our Chicago readers.  Great guys all.  And particularly thanks to one reader for helping guide me through Windy City traffic.  He told me the Mapquest directions were not the best way to get here.  As a result, I also got to drive through a beautiful section of downtown–wish I had more time to admire its architecture.

Do want to report something I learned from this reader.  While serving in the Illinois Senate and representing Illinois in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama never marched in the Gay Pride Parade.  Nor has the city’s Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Apparently, Mr. Obama was in town during the 2008 Gay Pride parade, but was getting a hair cut at the time.

Sonicfrog reports that some of my fellow conservative bloggers are upset that Rima Fakih “Michigan Muslim hottie has won the Miss USA Pageant“.

Now, having seen her pictures, I’m trying figure out what all the fuss is all about.  She’s wearing a bikini not a burkha.  And don’t Islamic radicals want women to cover it all up?

My sense (from what little I know of her) is that she is as far from the ideology of the Islamic extremists as are most Muslims in American society.  This could actually be a very good thing to have her as Miss USA.  Let’s wait and see.  Or it could (as is most likely) just be a big ol’ nothing burger, just another pretty face with a title which gives her headlines and allows her to make public appearances.

Maybe she is dumb as a box of rocks (I have no idea I haven’t heard her speak), but if so, it just shows she has a lot in common with other winners of the title.  From what little I’ve seen of her (on the web), she does carry herself very well–and has a great smile.

She defies the Islamicists who seek to oppress women like her merely by looking beautiful in a bikini and other attire which help bring out her natural beauty.

Here’s something that fell into my lap this morning, thanks to Jonah over at NRO. It’s a video of David Horowitz taking a question from Jumanah Imad Albahri, a student at the University of California in San Diego, and a member of the Muslim Student Association. It’s quite striking:

Toward the end of the video, Horowitz asks the student: “I am a Jew. The head of Hizbulah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For it, or against it?”

Her response is chilling in its simplicity and the conviction with which it’s delivered.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

First, while I’m pleased to see Arlen Specter go down to the defeat in the primary that he switched parties to enter because he thought he was certain to win, I think Pat Toomey would have an easier go at the opportunistic octogenarian. Still, Sestak is cut from the same liberal cloth as Nancy Pelosi. And he’ll have to defend a lot of big government votes.

And the Mark Critz victory, although expected, still stings. It doesn’t seem the GOP did a good enough job of getting blue collar Democrats, inclined to buck their party in this region, to get out to vote. As Michael Barone put it:

More important, I suspect, is that the primary/special election evidently didn’t bring out the kind of voters who put this traditionally Democratic district (narrowly) in the McCain column in 2008: tradition-minded Democrats who didn’t like Obama and never much liked Republicans but who felt obliged to vote out of civic duty. They didn’t, or so my theory goes, feel compelled to vote in the Specter-Sestak primary, between two liberals from the faraway Philadelphia area they didn’t have anything in common with, and they didn’t feel compelled to vote in the Pennsylvania 12 special between a Democrat who took care to distance himself from Nancy Pelosi but was still a Democrat and a Republican who was a businessman conspicuously not endorsed by the retired military officer who was the party’s candidate 18 months ago.

That’s right, Bill Russell, the Republican who ran against Murtha in 2008 who was competing against GOP nominee Tim Burns in a primary the same day Burns faced Critz in the special, “pointedly,” as Barone put it, “did not endorse special election Republican candidate Tim Burns.”

Did voters who came out to vote for Russell in the primary pointedly refuse to vote for Burns in the special?

Still, as David Freddoso put it, while it was a good night for Democrats, it was a bad night for Obama.  Neither incumbent Democratic mustered 50% in their respective primaries (Specter in PA, Lincoln in AR).  Lincoln could still win the primary in the Natural State.

Boy, Nancy Pelosi must be glad America has the Drudge Report. After all, as she said herself, “we have to pass the [health care ] bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Today, as if answering her call for such information, Matt links to two new pieces of news about the SoHCA2010:

Health reform threatens to cram already overwhelmed emergency rooms:

The new healthcare law will pack 32 million newly insured people into emergency rooms already crammed beyond capacity, according to experts on healthcare facilities.

And,

Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate:

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren’t taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

Do you suppose Speaker Pelosi will thank Drudge for helping her out in educating us about ObamaCare, now that it’s passed, just as she promised?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

UPDATE: What can I say, but, God bless our commentors (I’m sure the Speaker likewise sends along her thanks)… From ILC: Forget about keeping your doctor and your plan under ObamaCare

On my way this morning to meet Dan for brunch, I was listening to one of our local talk-radio stations. The host was reading from Michael Barone’s piece from this weekend about the Administration’s inability to call our enemy “Islamist extremists”. I hadn’t read this article when I wrote my post this weekend regarding the Left’s incessant use of the term “hate” to deride not the content of their opponents’ arguments, but rather their motivations, thus avoiding having to defend their own positions against a thoughtful rebuttal. But Barone gives me even more to think about, when he concludes, after lining out several instances of American leaders’ trepidation to call our enemy by name (emphasis added by me):

My theory is that these well-intentioned folk see the American people as a howling mob. They think that if Americans find out that Islamists are attacking us, they will go out and slaughter innocent Muslims. They think that Americans are incapable of understanding the simple truth that while most terrorists are Islamists, the large majority of Muslims are not terrorists.

Doesn’t this sound similar to the argument about the gay Leftists who insist on labeling their rhetorical opponents simply “hateful”, rather than allowing that they might be temperate and sober thoughtful people who simply have come to different conclusions than they have?

This Howling Mob theory dovetails well with the use of “hate” as a dismissive for the gay Left. They are of a piece. If an entire class of Americans believe we (i.e., the rest of the Nation) are all simply unwashed masses without the cranial wherewithal to even understand cognitive subtleties, wouldn’t it make sense to try to pit us against each other by preying on our basest instincts and emotions?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)