Considering the sources of those who thought Richard Grenell had been “under wraps,” my skepticism have been warranted, but now more details have emerged naming the aide who asked that he not speak on a conference call on national security. This is most bizarre — and counterproductive — move. The best way to allay concerns about Grenell’s conservatism would be to have speak out on his area of expertise.

When you hear a gay man offering a conservative critique of a liberal president’s foreign policy failures, you’re not going to focus on his sexuality, but on that conservative critique.

One wonders especially why the campaign aide issued the directive, given, as Jon Ward pointed out yesterday in the Huffington Post that the Romney campaign thought the Grenell flap had “blown over“.  Indeed, one can perhaps attribute their failure to issue a statement indicating that the campaign was standing by them to that perception.  (Hopefully more on this anon.)

The campaign’s perception does indeed seen warranted.  Until I  had read that Grenell was stepping down, I — and a number of our readers who e-mailed me about the matter – had only heard about one social conservative (Bryan Fischer) criticizing the appointment. (When the story broke, we learned there were others.)  As one reader put it in the comments to my first post on the matter:

Until he resigned I’d never heard of this guy. I think I’m at least somewhat socially conservative and I would have thought that if there was a big enough stink about it to make anything happen, I would have heard of him before now.

Seems that primarily gay conservatives and social conservatives (and those who follow politics closely) were aware of the story.  It makes sense to think the story had “blown over.”

Why then would the campaign direct Grenell to remain silent on the conference call? (more…)

Democratic-generated complaints notwithstanding, there was nothing wrong with George W. Bush highlighting his leadership in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as he campaigned for reelection. He was reminding us of how he had handled his job, uniting the nation at a challenging time. And since he was asking us to keep him on for another term, it was entirely appropriate to provide a record of his accomplishment.

Similarly, there is nothing wrong with Obama reminding us under his watch, Navy SEALs got Osama bin Laden.  We got it done under his watch.  He has every right to take credit for it.

He may be, as Glenn quipped earlier today, overplaying it a bit. And to borrow the metaphor the blogmeister used, the man who scores the touchdown has every right to spike the ball to celebrate his score.  Only he should also acknowledge the man who threw the pass as well as the coach — as well as the other members of the team — who helped him into scoring position.  In other words, Obama may have been in position to score the kill, but he did it as part of a team.

And that team didn’t just include Democrats.  Under Mr. Obama’s Republican predecessor, the team (to stay with the metaphor) moved the ball down the field [See UPDATE below].  The team didn’t score points against Republicans, but against enemies of the United States, enemies shared by both parties.

In other words, it’s one thing to campaign on his own accomplishment, quite another to suggest your opponent wouldn’t have done the same thing.  As 2010 CPAC blogger of the year Ed Morrissey puts it:

Obama would be on firm ground to highlight that victory in the war on terror, as he does in his tedious “Forward” campaign video. Implying that Romney would have let Osama bin Laden go under those circumstances is, as [Arianna] Huffington says, despicable.

Yup, even that liberal blogress condemned the attack ad: (more…)

Last night, in winning last night’s big prize, Amy Walter of ABC OTUS News reported

[Mitt] Romney didn’t simply get more votes than Santorum did in the “must-win” state of Wisconsin, he won over the kinds of voters who have been skeptical of his candidacy for much of this primary season: very conservative Republicans, middle income earners, strong Tea Party supporters and non-college graduates.

His victory in the Badger State coupled with wins in the District of Columbia and Maryland allowed the former Massachusetts governor to pull a hat-trick last night. And he might had higher percentages in Wisconsin if not for Democratic shenanigans there, as Michael Barone observed, in sifting through the exit polls:

According to the exit poll, 30% of Republican primary voters identified themselves as Independents and 11% as Democrats. Among self-identified Democrats, Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney 37%-19%. That amounted to a Santorum popular vote majority of 2% of the total vote. You might want to keep that in mind in interpreting the statewide percentage. Among self-identifed Republicans, Romney won 51%-37%. That’s pretty conclusive about what Republicans want. (more…)

“Last month,” writes Conn Carroll in the Washington Examiner,

. . . the CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook showed federal spending would total $44.251 trillion through 2022. Obama’s budget released yesterday shows $46.959 trillion in spending through 2022. That is a $2.7 trillion spending increase. For 2012 alone, Obama’s budget increases spending by $195 billion.

No wonder then, as Carroll reports, that

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., challenged Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients to resign this morning, unless he could substantiate his claim that President Obama’s budget does not increase spending.

“Do you propose to spend more money over the next ten years than what the Budget Control Act and current law would cause us to spend?” Sessions asked.

Via Instapundit.  So, the president plans to increase spending over the levels he and Congress agreed upon last summer.

Now, recall the “astounding” figure Bob Schieffer cited in the third presidential debate in 2008 of a federal deficit of $455.  The then-Democratic presidential nominee replied promising not only a “net spending cut”, but also saying that if we made investments then (i.e., increased government spending), then we would save “in the future“, adding

But what is absolutely true is that, once we get through this economic crisis and some of the specific proposals to get us out of this slump, that we’re not going to be able to go back to our profligate ways.

In other words, while he favors a temporary burst of spending to lift us out of the economic crisis, once it has passed, he envisioned a new era of fiscal responsibility.

Having studied the president’s budget proposal, Liz Peek finds, however, that the Democrat intends to extend our profligate ways far into the future:

Through certain spending cuts, some gimmickry (counting not spending on two wars as deficit reduction) and $1.5 trillion in tax hikes, the budget gap is projected to shrink to $575 billion in 2018, comfortably beyond the range of the country’s political telescope.

Via Instapundit.  Guess that means Obama thinks we’ll still be going through this economic crisis six years hence.  ($575 billion is greater than $455.)

Back in the 2008 campaign (and its immediate aftermath), I talked to a lot of young voters enthusiastic about Barack Obama.  When I asked many why they supported the Chicago politician, they repeated the usual bromides about how their guy was a different kind of politician who would change the way things were done in Washington.

When I asked them to specify the kinds of changes he would implement, they replied that he would be different from George W. Bush.  Obama’s appeal was based on his image, not his ideas.  In a similar vein, Michael Barone writes that he has “long thought that there was a tension between Millennials’ former enthusiasm for Obama and the thrust of the Obama Democrats’ policies” and sees in that tension an opportunity for Republicans:

This is an iPod/Facebook 21st century generation. Young Americans want to customize their own world. They want to shape their own destinies, not be part of a herd that is shepherded from one pasture to another. They like the advice of Obama appointee Anne-Marie Slaughter: Design your own profession.

The Obama policies are redolent of mid-20th century welfare state planning. From Obamacare’s unaccountable boards determining the care patients get to his affection for high-speed rail that will forever run on the same tracks, choice is limited or eliminated. Central planners determine your future.

It’s as if every iPod had an identical play list and every Facebook page were the same.

Romney and the other Republicans can claim that their policies, by providing choices and opening markets to spur innovation that no central authority can plan, will enable young people to choose their futures.

Obama likes to emphasize the Obamacare provision that lets “children” up to age 26 stay on their parents’ health insurance. Apparently that polls well with Millennials.

Republicans should counter that they want young people to choose their own health plan, from firms competing for their business. An economy liberated from Obamas’ tax and regulations can provide more choices and opportunities.

It’s Barone.  Read the whole thing.

Yesterday, while pumping gas, I saw a woman melt down when unable to fill her Lexus SUV with gas. I silently mocked her. Today, I sympathized with her.

Maybe she had had the kind of traffic I did today and the challenge of self-serve gasoline was the straw which broke the proverbial camel’s back. Driving to meet my friend at the Century City Mall (where we were slated to see The Iron Lady), I changed into the left lane on Santa Monica Boulevard to pass a slow moving cement mixer, but failed to advance in traffic when cut off by a slow-moving delivery truck — which later tried to turn left onto Beverly without first changing into the turning lane.

Road work then slowed my progress further. Leaving the parking garage after watching the movie, I was stuck behind a woman who couldn’t figure out how to use the automated exit machine. And I couldn’t back out because the driver in the car behind me wasn’t aware of the problem.

Because of road work, I avoided Santa Monica Blvd on the way home only to find traffic moving to a crawl on Olympic. I so appreciated the scene at the beginning of the 1992 Michael Douglas movie Falling Down when his character, stuck in traffic, simply turns off his car’s engine and walks away.

Screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith must have experience many journeys like the one I experienced today.  Sometimes, you really just feel like turning off the car, leaving it in the road and walking away.

I woke up this morning to this interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal.

The Koskenniemi brothers thought they were doing Americans a favor when they decided to create a Finnish-style online political-candidate picker for the U.S.

In Finland, candidates answer surveys about their positions, which are used to match voters, computer dating-style, with the politician whose views most closely reflect their own. Half of the country’s voting population uses such electoral websites to guide them at the ballot box.

The two Finnish brothers, however, quickly learned how hard it is to pin down the positions of Republican presidential primary contenders on everything from climate change to tax policy.

The rest of the article is subscriber-only, but you get the drift.  It’s like Match.com for your Presidential Candidate.  Well, I couldn’t resist.

Here are my candidate picks based on how they agree with my answers to the questions.  And keep in mind I voted completely opposite on my top 2 winner’s preference on Gay Marriage (who has the same stance as President Obama, I might add).

Here’s my lineup….

Now try it yourself!  The quick survey match-up is at VotingAid.com.

Very interesting.   And, by the way, I’m still voting Newt on Jan. 21 in South Carolina.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Can you imagine how the media would have reacted if the immediate past President of the United States told a group of Republican donors that Democrats threatened the “very core of what this country stands for.” Well, at a campaign event two days ago at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., his successor did just that and we don’t hear much squawking:

The very core of what this country stands for is on the line — the basic promise that no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, this is a place where you could make it if you try. The notion that we’re all in this together, that we look out for one another — that’s at stake in this election. Don’t take my word for it. Watch some of these debates that have been going on up in New Hampshire.

Must be that new kind of politics.  Wonder if his poll numbers would be any better if he spent more time attempting his uplift Americans and less time seeking to malign Republicans.

In 1980, George H.W. Bush edged out Ronald Reagan in the Iowa caucuses 32% to 30%.  He lost the nomination to Reagan.

Eight years later, after serving seven years as Reagan’s Vice President, H.W. finished third with 19% of the vote behind Bob Dole who snagged 37% of the vote and Pat Robertson who snagged 26%.  He won the nomination.

In both years (1980 and 1988), the contest for the Republican nomination was decided relatively early.

Just caught this in a piece Megan McArdle penned on the growth in Washington, D.C. (that had Glenn linked on Instapundit):

In the next few years, it’s reasonable to expect that the ten year boom in government expansion will come to an end.  Does that mean that the DC housing-and-retail boom ends with it?  Will population stall?

Ten year boom?  Guess that undermines the theory of George W. Bush as a budget cutter and deregulator.

RELATED: So, DC has nation’s biggest increase in population growth*?

YAY Arab Spring!!!!

Judges overseeing the vote count in Egypt’s parliamentary elections say Islamist parties have won a majority of the contested seats in the first round. The judges spoke on condition of anonymity because official results are expected to be released later Thursday.

They say the Muslim Brotherhood could take 45 percent of the seats up for grabs. The liberal Egyptian bloc coalition and the ultra-fundamentalist Nour party are competing for second place.

Together, Islamist parties are expected to control a majority of parliamentary seats by March. This week’s vote was the first of six stages of parliamentary elections that will last until then.

Obama = FAIL.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I’m glad I stumbled upon this item in the Wall Street Journal today.

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

<....>

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I am proud this morning to announce my support for Herman Cain for President.

This is a personal decision by me and does not reflect the views of my co-bloggers nor should be construed as an official endorsement by GOPROUD of which I am a board member.

Now that I’m done with that disclaimer….let me shout this from sea to shining sea — AMERICA NEEDS HERMAN CAIN!!!! I have been flirting with the Cain candidacy for over a year now. I had the pleasure to meet him at CPAC and I have been closely following his campaign long before most people knew his name.

I felt it was important to declare my preference publicly today as I have decided to become actively involved in Team Cain to assist in the South Carolina primary and beyond. I owe my readers the transparency of knowing why I am writing about certain things and not to be confused by my intent.

Why Herman Cain? Well, haven’t been this excited about a Presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984 (the first year I was old enough to truly know anything and make a difference).

Some will now say, “now Bruce….there will never be another Ronald Reagan!” And that is true. And I am NOT equating Mr. Cain to Mr. Reagan. What I am saying is that Mr. Cain excites me with his common sense ideas, love of country, and ability to connect to the American psyche. Choosing a President has always been a “gut feeling” thing for America. I have a great feeling about Herman Cain.

Herman Cain has been plucked by destiny to arrive at America’s electoral doorstep at just the right time. He has a solid business background, is an inspirational leader of people, and understands the complexities of the world economy. He wasn’t a community organizer, he is a jobs and growth creator. He wasn’t a concocted creation of America’s radical left and academic centers of power, he is a true child of the American Experience. He has never scoffed at American values, he embraces our nation’s special place in the history of mankind and knows we are teetering on the edge.

Mr. Cain is familiar with rescuing failing enterprises, which to me is his most important qualification. In a sheer coincidence to the timing of my announcement, Daniel Henninger wrote this yesterday in the Wall Street Journal:

Does a résumé like Herman Cain’s add up to an American presidency? I used to think not. But after watching the American Idol system we’ve fallen into for discovering a president—with opinion polls, tongue slips and media caprice deciding front-runners and even presidents—I’m rewriting my presidential-selection software. [Emphasis added.]

Conventional wisdom holds that this week’s Chris Christie boomlet means the GOP is desperate for a savior. The reality is that, at some point, Republicans will have to start drilling deeper on their own into the candidates they’ve got.

Put it this way: The GOP nominee is running against the incumbent president. Unlike the incumbent, Herman Cain has at least twice identified the causes of a large failing enterprise, designed goals, achieved them, and by all accounts inspired the people he was supposed to lead. Not least, Mr. Cain’s life experience suggests that, unlike the incumbent, he will adjust his ideas to reality.

No other GOP candidate can bring the fight to Obama over the sorry state of the American economy than Herman Cain. Our other choices are, I’m sad to say, more of the same old thing — career professional politicians. Yes, even Ron Paul, folks.

So there you have it. My big announcement. Herman Cain is the first Presidential candidate I will actively and ENTHUSIASTICALLY campaign for through blood, sweat, money & tears since Ronald Reagan in 1984. That’s a long time of being unmoved by GOP nominees, don’t you think?

There will be more to say about Herman Cain and the issues. But I wanted to stand up today and proudly declare my support for the 45th President of the United States of America and the next true heir of the American Experience — Mr. Herman Cain.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I can hardly believe that a decade has passed since I was two blocks from The White House and watching the TV in my office as a second plane hit the World Trade Center.

A lot of what drives me as an adult was born on that day. It is hard to believe that 2001 was so long ago. John and I had only met two years before. We enjoyed living in the DC suburbs before that day. None of our current canine companions had been born yet. The creation of the GayPatriot blog was highly influenced by the events of 9/11, but on that day I had no idea what blogs even were. My personal time being invested in politics no doubt increased and I am sure that my convictions about helping to start GOPROUD are rooted in 9/11/2001.

As long time readers know, I don’t talk much about my personal life — but I struggled for a long time to deal with the attacks on America in 2001. As I’ve mentioned before, not only was I in DC that day — but a very close friend was taken from me during the terrorist attacks. I found myself psychologically affected by that day for many years to come. Since 9/11, we moved west to Loudon County, VA…then south to Charlotte, NC ….and now to York, SC. I don’t regret any of those moves, but I can’t honestly say that I would be living where I’m living had 9/11 not happened.

I was thinking about the “9/11 kids” this weekend. It struck me that kids who were 10 & 11 on the day of the attacks are now 20 & 21. I have to believe that they have been profoundly affected by the last decade — perhaps in a way that will never alter that generation’s character.

I’m tired of war, I’m tired of fighting, and I’m just damned tired. But this nation’s founding was an aberration of human history — and I’ll be damned if some two-bit 7th Century ideologues will break my will and take the United States of America down.

Let’s Roll.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Today, ten years after the terror attacks on America, I once again dedicate this space to my lost friend, James Joe Ferguson, who was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when that plane was used as a weapon and crashed into the Pentagon. This posting goes up at the exact time that plane was flown into the Pentagon ten years ago.

We miss you, Joe.
-Bruce and John

Addendum: Most folks on 9/11 naturally think of the thousands who died in the WTC, or in the Pentagon or on Flight 93. When I reflect on this day, I immediately think of Joe and his fellow passengers on Flight 77. In some ways, they are the forgotten victims. “Truthers” insist no plane hit the Pentagon. The families of those who died on Flight 77 would beg to differ. In any case, Flight 77 illustrates how ruthless Islamic terrorists are. Imagine sitting in your seat as your plane accelerates to 500 mph but you see the ground coming up fast and you know you are going to die. That folks, is the definition of “terror”.

********************

The last time we had dinner, Joe told my partner John and I about how much he was looking forward to being a part of the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Typically, I found myself jealous of him. In his role as Director of Geographic Education at the National Geographic Society, Joe had one of the most unique and rewarding jobs I can ever imagine having.

He traveled around the world, bringing American school children face-to-face with the natural wonders of our Earth. He was not only a teacher but also provided a critical turning point for these kids, many of whom had never before left their own neighborhoods. Joe provided the path for these students to experience things that many of us never will in our entire lives.

In addition, he got to travel to the four corners of the globe. How rewarding that must have been. How do I sign up for that job?

I got an email from Joe on Thursday, September 6, 2001. “Hi cutie” it started — typical opening line for Joe to any of his friends. He had just returned from Alaska and wanted to tell show me all the pictures, but the following week he said he was headed to California for another work trip. I printed out and kept that email for many months in my briefcase as a way to keep Joe alive.

As dawn broke on September 11, 2001, Joe called his Mom in Mississippi to give her a wake up call as he always did when he traveled. He said to her, “I’ll call you when I get to California. Have a good day.” He was that kind of person. The kind of person, who, no matter where he was and how busy he was, dropped a postcard to his friends so we could share a part of his experiences throughout the world.

At Dulles International Airport, Joe stood with his group traveling to California and took some last minute photos. He and another colleague were scheduled passengers on American Airlines Flight 77, accompanying three D.C. public school teachers and three students on a National Geographic-sponsored field trip to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, Calif. After the photos were taken, they bid farewell to the children’s parents and proceeded to their gate.

At 9:37AM, Joe lost his life at the young age of thirty-nine when terrorists slammed the plane into the side of the Pentagon at 500 mph. A teacher and positive role model to young Americans was taken from the world in an act of sheer violence and viciousness.

As I was dealing with the many emotions of the events of September 11, a thought crossed my mind the next day. Gosh, I thought, Joe had said he was traveling and now he’s stuck somewhere until the airlines are allowed to fly again. So I called his work number in DC and left a message. After I heard his voice for the last time, I said “Give me a call if you are checking messages.” “I hope you make it home soon,” I concluded. When I called that day, I had no idea.

It wasn’t until Friday, September 14 that I found out that one of my dearest friends had become a casualty of the attacks on America. Suddenly, this war was personal — it had hit home. I wasn’t expecting to have to go to two memorial services and walk around in a state of numbness for many weeks.

At Joe’s memorial service, there were lots of tears and lots of laughs as well. One of Joe’s friends told the gathering that Joe had this way of making you feel as if you were his best friend in the world. I knew exactly what he meant. I saw Joe every once in a while. We would have lunch, or more likely trade emails or phone calls. But every time we talked, I felt like Joe’s best friend. Joe still has a lot of best friends all around the world.

Perhaps Joe’s death hit me so hard because it was the first death of someone close to me that I had experienced as an adult. I am still surprised by the impact that his death has had, and in many ways continues to have, on my life.

In fact, I did a lot of personal reflecting in the months following 9/11. I questioned how important my job and even my life were in a time of war where terrorists could invade your workplace or your school and slaughter you with no remorse. I questioned what value and worth my own career had in comparison with a man who had chosen to teach and change the lives of young people. I felt trapped in a good job that was giving me no personal satisfaction.

All I could remember was how happy Joe always was and how that cheer was infectious to all of his friends and colleagues. I would miss that cheerful influence on me. Joe had made the choice to live life to the fullest extent possible. He was the model of the optimistic American who knows no frontiers and no bounds. He was doing more than his fair share of contributing to a better society.

My partner John and I took a trip to the American West in the summer of 2003 and followed some of the Lewis & Clark Trail. I know Joe would have loved the scenery and spirit of America that lives and breathes in the land of Montana and Wyoming. The IMAX film about the “Corps of Discovery” produced by the National Geographic Society — Lewis & Clark: The Great Journey West — was dedicated to the memory of Joe Ferguson. It is available on DVD and I strongly recommend watching it.

One day in early 2002, I heard a song on the radio that I don’t remember hearing before 9/11/2001. I didn’t even know it was LeeAnn Womack’s voice, because the words are the soul and essence of Joe Ferguson. The words are an expression of his personal passion and love of life. And the words are also an inspiration for all of us to get through the many trying days of our post-9/11 world.

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder.
Get your fill to eat, but always keep that hunger.
May you never take one single breath for granted.
God forbid love ever leave you empty-handed.
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean.
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens.
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance.
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance.

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance.
Never settle for the path of least resistance.
Livin’ might mean takin’ chances, but they’re worth takin.
Lovin’ might be a mistake, but its worth makin.
Don’t let some hell bent heart leave you bitter.
When you come close to sellin’ out, reconsider.
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance.
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance.

Nobel-prize winning economist Gary S. Becker had a piece in the Wall Street Journal on Friday which is perhaps the best short comprehensive piece on the ongoing economic malaise, from the causes of the financial crisis of 2008 to the failure of the immediate past Congress and current administration to remedy the situation.

The University of Chicago economics professor reminds his readers that “government behavior also contributed to and prolonged” the financial crisis: “Regulators who could have reined in banks instead became cheerleaders for the banks.”

Given that markets melted down in a Republican administration, Democrats cleaned up at all levels in the 2008 elections. Once in power, they turned to their party’s tried and true response to economic crises: more government spending. Congressional Democrats put together a near-trillion dollar “stimulus plan”, and “Leading government economists, backed up by essentially no evidence, argued that this spending would stimulate the economy by enough to reduce unemployment rates to under 8%.”

Although a lot of economic theory supports the notion that higher spending stimulates the economy, the historical record tells a different story.

Instead of economic expansion on par with previous economic recoveries with accelerating job creation and declining unemployment, the Democratic stimulus instead produced . . .

. . . a sizable expansion of the federal deficit and debt.

The misdiagnosis of widespread market failure led congressional leaders, after the 2008 election, to propose radical changes in financial institutions and, more generally, much wider regulation and government control of companies and consumer behavior. . . .

Although regulatory discretion failed leading up to the crisis, Congress nevertheless added to the number and diversity of federal regulations as well as to the discretion of regulators. (more…)

Every now and again, when surfing the political blogs, I’ll keep a window open with an article or blog post that might provide some good blog fodder.  Sometimes, I’ll fit the post into one of my own; most times, it will just stay open, with me unable to incorporate it into something I’m working on or to expand it into the kind of posts I tend to write.

So, today, I’m trying something new, kind of a roundup of interesting posts from around the web, links to those “open windows” (so I can close them in better conscience).

Ed Morrissey: Gallup: Lack of spending cuts biggest worry for Americans in debt debate

Michael Barone: Gang of Six, What’s In It and Why It’s Bad

Examiner Editorial: Gang of Six plan is more smoke and mirrors

Examiner Editorial: No union, including SEIU, should be above the law

Jennifer Rubin: How the White House killed the deal

Puma by Design: Rubio: “Hard To Compromise When The Other Side Does Not Have A Plan”

John Nolte: Hollywood Reporter: ‘Captain America’ Sticks to ‘Simplistic, Patriotic Origins’

Jeffrey H. ANderson: Obama: Borrow $2.4 Trillion—Roughly What We Borrowed During WWII

John Hinderaker: Bachmann’s Headaches

“Obama’s numbers,” writes Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Democratic outfit, about its poll, showing the president slipping, particularly among independents:

. . . are worse than they appear to be on the surface. The vast majority of the undecideds in all of these match ups disapprove of the job Obama’s doing but aren’t committing to a candidate yet while they wait to see how the Republican field shakes out. Here’s an idea of where these various match ups might stand once all voters have made up their minds:

-In the Obama/Romney head to head 21% of undecideds approve of Obama and 61% disapprove. If you allocate them based on their approval/disapprove of Obama, Romney would lead 52-48.

Emphasis added. Seems they’re more ready to vote for a generic Republican than a specific Republican.  The latest Gallup poll or registered voters shows the “Republican Party’s candidate for president” beating Obama in the 2012 election by a margin of 47% to 39%.

What’s interesting to note as well is that not all those approve of the president’s performance are sold on renewing the Obama’s lease on the Oval Office.

When a friend questioned why we honored the military on July 4 when the day was about “about US independence and the wonderful aspects of the American experiment,” I replied:

Well, without the military, there’s be no US independence nor any American experiment for that matter. Remember, he was General Washington before he was President Washington. It was his success on the battlefield that made him first in war so he could later become both first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

The martial leadership that General Washington showed, both in achieving the victories which followed the crossing depicted above and in managing the defeats his armies faced against a better equipped and trained military than his rag-tag militia not only earned him the acclaim he enjoyed among his compatriots, but also allowed our nation to fulfill the promise that Thomas Jefferson so beautifully articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the promise Mr. Jefferson’s fellows in the Continental Congress ratified 235 years ago today.

Our guest poster returns.

Largely overlooked yesterday in the wake of the president’s latest salvo in the Global War on the MIddle Class was the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision upholding Obamacare’s individual mandate.

That this abhorrent piece of legislation is neither fully understood by anyone, nor welcomed by those with a functioning brain is distressing enough; yesterday’s majority opinion should scare the daylights out of those of us who not only understand the Constitution better than Richard Stengel, but what the Obama administration will now feel empowered to do with it’s newfound green light to regulate just about every damned choice Americans make.

Overstatement, you say? Consider this snippet, excerpted ad Hot Air:

Congress had a rational basis for concluding that, in the aggregate, the practice of self-insuring for the cost of health care substantially affects interstate commerce. Furthermore, Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the minimum coverage provision is essential to the Affordable Care Act’s larger reforms to the national markets in health care delivery and health insurance. Finally, the provision regulates active participation in the health care market, and in any case, the Constitution imposes no categorical bar on regulating inactivity. Thus, the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause, and the decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Wait a second. “ [T]he Constitution imposes no categorical bar on regulating inactivity?” Oh. My. God. Unbeknownst to me, the Commerce Clause apparently renders every other word in the Constitution irrelevant, and is the only real clause that has ever mattered. After all, it is contended, the federal government may do anything so long as, in the aggregate, it “affects interstate commerce,” which, as is often pointed out, applies to everything.

Ace sums it up nicely: (more…)