Scaring Women...

...and men.

Former First Lady Laura Bush has acknowledged that during the 2012 election cycle, there were a few Republican candidates that scared women.

I have some bad news for Mrs. Bush, the scary behavior isn't limited to a few candidates.

It’s not the contraception, everybody thinks it’s about contraception, but what this court case said was young people have the right to engage in sex outside of marriage. Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.

Folks seeking to ban sex outside of marriage are pretty scary too.  It's a pity that the GOP embraces such idiocy rather than expelling it.  Having one viable political party would really be nice for a change.

Reading The Rule Book

One reason why I lean towards the GOP is that they attempt to maintain the pretense of have read and understood our Constitution at some point in the recent past.

Each member of the House has had to attach a Constitutional Authority Statement (CAS) to every proposed bill since Jan. 5, 2011.

However, one group of Republicans is unimpressed by the offered justifications for constitutionality.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC) analyzes each statement—3,865 in the first year alone—and in response to some of the more questionable justifications began emailing every congressional office a “Questionable Constitutional Authority Statement of the Week.”

“We started highlighting horrible Constitutional Authority Statements because there were so many of them,” said Brian Straessle, RSC spokesman. “Think of it as a shaming mechanism to get people to think seriously and carefully about the intended limits of the federal government’s power.”

Newt Gingrich, for all of his flaws, had at least one redeeming quality.  He thought that members of Congress should read the Constitution as well as the works of the founders so that they would have some sort of familiarity with what the words in the Constitution mean.

The Democratic leadership abandoned that idea a long, long time ago.

How Far Will This Go?

Much further...I hope.

State Rep. Mike Fleck (R-Huntingdon) publicly acknowledged Saturday that he is gay, making him the first openly gay lawmaker in Pa. and the only* currently sitting openly gay Republican state legislator in the entire country.

A GOP that has abandoned the culture wars can only be a progressive step for our country.

Spending Cuts Vs. Tax Hikes Explained

link

This pretty well encapsulates the current "negotiations" on our deficit spending problem.

I Have Done Been Miracled....

....into the Democratic Party.  'Cause trust me, divine intervention is required to make that happen these days.

But if this represents the thinking amongst the GOP leadership, then they have lost whatever marginal support that I was able to muster in the past.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was caught on video at a fundraiser in Connecticut on Thursday raising doubts about the war in Afghanistan.


The Democratic National Committee (DNC) pushed out the video, which shows Steele saying that the war is of "Obama's choosing" and that it is nearly impossible to win a land war in the Central Asian country.


"Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in," he said. "But it was the president who was trying to be cute by half by building a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well, if he is such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?"

My panties....they done been twisted.

One of the areas where I have been very pleased to support Mr. Obama is his administration's strong support for our campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not unlike his predecessor, there are times when he and his administration could have done a better job.  But they have largely stayed the course to victory in Iraq.  Hopefully they will do the same in Afghanistan.

A New Political Face

There is a growing level of attention being paid to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.  Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit links to videos of the Governor on a regular basis.

I like him.  I like where he comes from with respect to how elected office holders should behave.  I like that he challenges the media when they label him as being obstructive but give NJ state Democrats a pass for refusing to hold votes.  He is open.  He appears honest.  And you know exactly where he stands on the issues.

His best qualities are a sharp reminder of the things that made Sarah Palin such a popular and good Governor for Alaska.  He doesn't sound or act like he comes from the good ol' boy club.

I think we need someone like Chris Christie in our national politics.  I don't know if he is considering a run for the Presidency in 2012, but I think he would offer the nation a sharp and distinct set of choices about our future.  We can stay the course into a national debt laden hell.  Or we can change and hope to correct our national fiscal policies so that government is more correctly sized for the needs of our nation; fiscally as well as the number of federal employees.

It is a little early for any serious speculation, but I do think that Governor Christie bears watching.

In Which A Bunch Of Politicians Meet, In Public, On The Record

I didn't get to watch today's summit where Mr. Obama hosted leaders of the GOP and the Democrats to discuss his health care proposals.  Judging from this report from Salon, it seems that the only people coming [out -ed] of the meeting looking good were Mr. Obama and the GOP.  Hardly surprising.

Obama debated Republicans vigorously and with precision—but it looked like a debate among people with actual philosophical differences, which in part it was. After an in-the-weeds debate about how the Congressional Budget Office accounted for premium increases, it became clear that the debate was between Democrats who want to set minimum standards for coverage and Republicans who want the market and individual choice to rule. The Democratic plan is more expensive but covers more people. The Republican plan is cheaper and doesn't.

As it played out, the event didn't look like one reasonable person aligned against a company of hooting morons. As Obama said during the lunch break: "The argument Republicans are making really isn't that this is a government takeover of health care, but rather that we're insuring the—or we're regulating the insurance market too much. And that's a legitimate philosophical disagreement." Obama continued to affirm this view by saying things like this: "Neither of these proposals is radical. The question is which one works best."

Moments like this make me glad to have Mr. Obama as President.  Although I disagree with much of his agenda, I appreciate the class he brings to the office.

If only the Democrats would have negotiated in good faith with the GOP, productive legislation might have already been signed into law.  Instead they have to wait for Mr. Obama to show them how it is done.

CPAC And Gay Republicans

Megan McArdle has a brief story about Ryan Sorba's brief rant condemning CPAC for inviting GOProud; a group of openly gay conservatives.  Mr. Sorba has issues with homosexuality.  Megan indicated that he was booed off stage and suggests that this modest amount of progress is worth noting.

So I went looking for video or audio only to find a much longer story over at Hot Air.  With video....




Now CPAC is a self limiting sample.  There has been an "open tent" trend towards ignoring social issues in favor of the more broadly supported fiscal issues.  However I'm not saying that the GOP is liable to adopt a platform position in favor of gay marriage anytime soon.

But you have to admit that you normally wouldn't have expected a room full of self described conservatives to [largely] boo someone off the stage for suggesting that homosexuality is wrong.  Right?

An earlier look at the issue may be found here.