The latest Gallup daily tracking poll has President Obama at his lowest job approval rating, 50%. (I think it is among registered voters, not likely voters, but there is no info at the link.) Just as interesting is the weekly job approval by demographic chart comparing the last four full weeks.

Among the highlights, Obama gets slightly more approval from females than males, 54% to 50%, although both have trended down. With age groups his biggest approval is still from the youngest (18-29 year-olds) at 60%. The least approval is from the retired crowd (over 65) at a dismal 43%. The other two middle age groups are in the mid to low 50’s. There also hasn’t been much change in these groups over the last four weeks. There has been drops in both the old and young end. Healthcare is a bigger issue for the elderly. They are the ones feeling the aches and pains of life more. They are also the ones more likely to get sick. It takes a big chuck of their budget. This is not as big of a deal for the young who are generally more healthy and usually don’t worry about the costs. What are the Democrats thinking politically? Why in the world would they offset a major portion of healthcare reform funding by chopping medicare? Essentially they are taking from those who care about the issue and giving to those who care least.

There is also some interesting results in the regional data. It is probably not surprising that he has the least approval in the South at 46%. Midwest clocks in next at 52%. Keep in mind that this includes Obama’s home state of Illinois and bluish-purple states like Wisconsin and Minnesota. Those are probably offset by conservative bastions like Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakota’s. It is also not surprising that Obama gets 56% approval in the East. A bit surprising is the 57% approval in the West, although California is probably the 500 lbs gorilla here by more than offsetting the mountain states and Alaska. It would be interesting to see a state by state map of approval.

You can look at the rest of the data for yourself. I don’t see anything too terribly interesting in any of the rest. There is one piece of data that has always bothered me about these polls. Toward the bottom there is a breakdown of ratings by party id and ideology. The last entry is for conservative Republicans. Supposedly 11% of these creatures give Obama a favorable job approval. Who are these people? On the other end of the spectrum I can understand how 9% of liberal Democrats can disapprove of the job Obama is doing. No matter how liberal he is, there will always be people who want him to go farther. Conservative Democrats might place greater importance on party over ideology. Liberal Republicans might place more importance on ideology over party, but those 11% of conservative Republicans make no sense. Obama is the complete opposite of just about every thing they stand for. Even if they were duped into believing he was moderate, this is still different from their desires as supposedly conservative and Republican. Results like these make me question how reliable self-identification is for ideology. There are a lot of people out there who have no clue what these terms mean or where they stand.

What is wrong with Republican Senators? Do they want to continue in the minority forever? The MSM has just reported that Luger (RINO-Ind) indicates he will vote for Sotomayor as a Supreme Court Justice. Listen up you idiot. The Democrats do not need a single Republican to place this lying piece of garbage on the Supreme Court. This is their excuse for a nominee. Let them own her. Have you learned nothing, NOTHING, from the previous extreme liberal activists that President Clinton nominated? Are you not able to read the polls? A plurality of voters oppose her. What is happening to our country? What is wrong with Republicans in the Senate? Lugar has just cut off at the knees all his colleagues who have been trying to make the case against Democrat activism on the courts.

I say it is time to let loose the dogs of political war against Lugar. We need to flood his email and phone lines. Maybe we can ship him those (playground) balls that we did a while back? He needs to know that rank and file Republicans are not happy.

[Update] Martinez (FL) and Snowe (ME) have also indicated they will vote for Sotomayor. Snowe is no surprise. (And Collins (ME) won’t be either, although there would be more pressure on them if the rest of the Republicans could stay in line.) Martinez is a disappointment, good riddance in 2010. Anyone hear how Crist and Rubio stand on Sotomayor?

Reading some of the recap of Sotomayor’s hearing on Bench Memos, I get the impression that she is very big on stare decisis, i.e. the attempt to respect and not contradict previous rulings by the same court or higher courts of the same jurisdiction. (As I am no lawyer, I hope I have summarized this concept correctly.) What worries me about this testimony is that the Supreme Court is not as subject to stare decisis as lower courts. Lower courts are bound by previous rulings of higher courts but there is no higher court than the Supreme Court. It is only bound by its own previous rulings and in some cases not even then.

There are at least two prominent instances of the Supreme Court disregarding stare decisis. In 1896 the court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate but equal education was constitutional. In 1954 the decision was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education. More recently, in 1986 the Court ruled that states could pass laws against homosexual sex in Bowers v. Hardwick, but this was overturned in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. Whatever you think of any of these decisions, there is definitely precedence for overturning precedence on the Supreme Court. Whether I agree with any of these rulings, I feel there should be room for overturning bad precedence although it should only be done with much fear and trembling. It is not as if the Supreme Court, even as a group, is infallible. As an originalist, my standard for overturning would the Constitution and the original intent of its writers.

I am curious. What does Sotomayor think of those four decisions? How binding should stare decisis be for the Supreme Court? Under what circumstances should precedence be overturned? What makes settled law settled? It is certainly good that she appreciated stare decisis as a lower court judge, but her answers so far have seemed used it as a cover to hide her fundamental reasoning. Answers to these questions should shine more light on her judicial philosophy.

First, your reading assignment is II Samuel 11:1 to 12:25.  It should be beneficial even to those of you who are non-religious conservatives.  Although it is primarily religious, there are some good political lessons here, too.  At the very least, it should give you some insight into the mindset of those of us who are more spiritually oriented.

Let me be clear.  I am not saying that Gov. Sanford is anything like King David.  After all, as far as I know, Sanford was never shepherd.  Sanford never was anointed governor of South Carolina.  Sanford certainly did not slay any giants.  Scriptures have never described Sanford as a man after God’s own heart.  While Sanford and David both did have extramarital affairs, Sanford never abused his office to cover up the affair by giving his adulterous accomplice’s husband unfair leave from military service.  Definitely Sanford never used the power of government to murder the husband.  While both men only admitted to their wrong when confronted, God speaking through the prophet Nathaniel only had David’s best interests in mind.  I don’t think the same could be said about the MSM and Sanford’s enemies.  Even with God’s mercy, David paid a terrible price for his mistake - the lives of at least two of his sons.  I don’t think the same will be required of Sanford, but God does make it clear that actions have consequences.

If you think this cannot happen to you, might I suggest a little thought experiment.  Ignore the whole David and Bathsheba story and think about or read everything else about David.  Ask yourself, does this sound like the type of man who would commit adultery?  Do you really think that you are more morally capable than King David?

Even with all of his wisdom and knowledge, Plato believed that the best government would be one ruled by a philosopher king.  Problem is there has never been a perfect philosopher king of the type to fulfill Plato’s vision.  Our founding fathers recognized the basic sinful nature of man (even if they may not have used those exact words) and so set up our government as a system of checks and balances and divided the powers of government between three branches.  Divided government is just as important as democracy to our system.  If men were perfect we would not need this division.

As conservatives and originalists we need to remember and promote the fact that one foundation of our Constitution is the knowledge that people are not perfect.  We will never find a candidate for any office that perfectly aligns with our individual preferences on all issues.  Last year during the election, we have had plenty of debate on this site about how different on the issues should a Republican candidate be before we refuse to vote for them.  Just as there is no candidate who is perfect on issues, there is also none who has a perfect personal life.  It is a conservative principle to expect imperfect politicians.  In so doing we are faithful to the principles of the founding fathers.  Of course at some point, poor personal behavior does effect the ability to perform the functions of office.  In my opinion Sanford has not yet crossed this line.

Like David, Sanford has the potential to repent and reform.  On fiscal issues he has been a strong conservative.  We have too few politicials who are this principled on fiscal issues.  He deserves a second chance with a probationary period.  Whether he can rebuild his political standing enough (which includes staying out of trouble) for a presidential run should remain an open question.  For now, he should consider the Presidency out of reach.  He and his staff need to exile the word “president” from all conversations for the next several years.   His priorities need to be repairing his personal life and his family and fulfilling his responsibility as governor.

From the diaries by Kevin.

Part of the health care plan problem in the U.S. is that it does not use the free enterprise system as well as it could to contain costs. Some reasons for these problems are federal and state government mandates and regulations. Outside of government regulations however, there is one health care policy that underutilized the power of capitalism to contain costs. This is the co-payment system for purchasing drugs.

If you have a health care plan like I do (and as far as I understand the vast majority of plans work this way) then if you need a prescription drug you can go to any pharmacy and only have to pay one amount no matter what drug it is. Your health care plan covers the rest. For example, let’s say you have high cholesterol so your doctor prescribes Lipitor. Without drug coverage, you would pay about $100 for 30 tablets of 10mg each. With coverage you pay $10 and your health care plan picks up the rest. If you have mental health problems, your doctor might proscribe Trazodone. Without coverage 30 tablets of 50mg would range in cost from about $11 to almost $25. With coverage you would still only pay $10 no matter where you buy it.

As a consumer this sounds like a great bargain. No matter what health problem I might have, my doctor can proscribe something, and I only have to pay a set amount. There is no hunting around on price so I can just pick it up at the most convenient drug store closest to my home or on the way to work.

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Hat tip: Club for Growth

This video should turn your blood to ice with fright:

What really gets me is the Orwellian use of the term, “single-payer”.  Just who is this payer?  This is just the start.  If it is good for healthcare, why not other important industries like energy?  First they strangle private enterprise with regulations and then they come riding on their white-washed horse to save the day by buying everyone out.

Despite all the best efforts of the Obama administration, Iraq continues to improve.  For the first time since the beginning of the Iraq war, coalition troop fatalities have dropped to single digitals over the course of a month.  We only lost 9 soldiers in the entire month of March, and half of those were non-hostile fatalities.   There has not been a hostile fatality since March 16.  Of course it is sad to hear of any deaths among our nation’s best and brightest, but it is heartening to know our troops (and our brave people of Iraq) are facing less and less danger on a daily basis.

We should be spreading this news throughout the Middle East and the world.  A.Q. and Iran threw every dirty trick they had at Iraq and yet we won.  This has got to be discouraging to the radical Jihadists, and, if it is not, we should be making it discouraging.  Every success in Iraq should be front page news.  I want every radical in Pakistan and Afghanistan to be in deep depression over their failure in Iraq.  I want every Muslim who yearns for freedom and democracy to be emboldened by Iraq.

In closing, I honor every U.S. soldier who has served in Iraq and especially those who gave their all.  Job well done.

First, thumbs up to Sen. McCain.  One of his few endearing qualities as a GOP candidate was his record and stance against wasteful government spending especially against pork in general and earmarks in specific.  It is good to see he is continuing that fight as he settles back into his senatorial duties.

On the heals of passing their porkulus bill that funded all kinds of liberal chicanery hiding behind the fig leaf of economic stimulus, Democrats are pushing their next bloated corpse of a spending bill now meant to give regular funding for the federal government.  Depending on new accounts this thing contains 8000 to 9000 earmarks, not hidden pork but deliberate blatant old-fashioned earmarks of the kind that candidate Obama denounced.  In the spirit of bi-partisanship, Sen. McCain took now President Obama at his word, and introduced an amendment to strip the omnibus spending bill of all earmarks.  In a move that surprises no-one the anti-earmark amendment failed along party lines with the majority of big-government pork-loving Democrats voting against it except for two, Bahy of IN and McCaskill of MO.

Unfortunately, not content to let the Democrats own this stinking pile of garbage, nine GOP Senators saw fit to give Democrats cover and vote against this amendment.  In addition to the three idiots who voted for porkulus - Collins & Snowe of ME and Specter of PA - six more GOP senators joined the insanity: Alexander (R-TN), Bennett (R-UT), Bond (R-MO), Cochran (R-MS), Murkowski (R-AK), and Shelby (R-AL).  What are these people thinking?  Do they enjoy being in the minority?  Do they like being powerless?  Do they want a larger Democratic majority?  Did they learn nothing, NOTHING, from the past two elections?  Please do us all a favor and resign right now so you can be replaced with people who have a brain.  This action is bad policy for the country and horrible politics for Republicans in the next election.

The recent revelations about Senator Dodd’s sweetheart mortgage deal and Congressman Murtha’s troubled ties to pork begging companies have me thinking about ethics oversight in Congress.  Frankly, it is a joke.  There is no incentive for the party in power to police their own members unless the violations are so obvious that the press cannot ignore them.  Also voters in the congressional districts that support unethical members all too often are complicit in the violations.  They know these guys are sleazy but they continue to send them back because the voters get bribed with pork.  Let me propose two simple ideas that might improve ethics oversight.

Currently ethics committees in both houses of Congress are limited to equal numbers of members from both parties.  This give each party effective veto power over any allegation.  Unfortunately all this setup does is stop investigations because neither party wants to hurt themselves.  A better setup would be any member is investigated and judged only by committee members of the opposite party.  Wouldn’t this create a lot of false allegations for pure political gain?  It might, but both sides need to remember that their opposition is capable of retaliation.  Besides, the founding fathers intended Congress to be adversarial.  Factions can only be kept in line by other factions.  Another bonus of this system is more investigations of more congressmen.  Do you seriously think Congress has a problem of over-investigation currently?  There are too many corrupt politicians getting away with too much right now.  Besides blatantly obvious corruption, the only way a Congressman is punished for ethics is by being voted out of office by his constituents.  The only way they are made aware of the situation is through opposition campaigning.  In other words, what I am proposing is just formalizing a process that is already in place.

What to do about voters who keep revoting for sleazy politicians?  Congressional districts should be punished along with Congressmen.  Give voters an incentive to toss the clowns.  On any ethics violation, Federal spending in the district should be limited to the percentage of voters who voted for the corrupt politician times the average federal spending across all districts.   We would get a bonus effect of reduced spending in general.

Sure there are some details to be worked out, but the general idea is workable.

It has been a few years since I played chess, and quite a few more since I played any serious game of it, but I do remember most of the fundamentals including a simple tactic calling forking. In this maneuver, you move one of your pieces so it simultaneously threatens two (or more) of your opponents pieces. The goal is not to necessarily capture the more powerful of the two opposition pieces, but two force your opponent into making a choice of the lesser of two evils - save one piece but sacrifice the other. One of the ultimate strategies behind this tactic is to slowly winnow away your opponent’s strength.

Republicans in Congress should be using this tactic in the new session. The two opposing pieces are Obama’s (and the Democrats’) legislation and any blue dog Democrat (one from a conservative district or state). Obviously Obama has enough Democrats in the House and Senate to pass any legislation that he chooses. With the exception of filibusters Republicans cannot block anything without help from Democrats, but they can and should force blue dogs to vote for liberal legislation that is unpopular in their home districts. This, in turn, should whittle down the blue dog popularity and provide future Republican opponents campaign material.

Of course, Obama and the Democrats have their own tactics of which Republicans need to be aware. Obama’s main tactic is the play on ‘bipartisanship’. He does not need a single Republican vote to pass his agenda. He is only using this to try to push Republicans in a corner. (If he really cared about bipartisanship he would not be pushing the “I won” meme.) Some of the mindless swing voters are easily distracted by the shiny bauble of bipartisanship. No doubt that Obama’s lap dogs in the press will charge any Republican voting against Obama’s legislation as being insufficiently bipartisan. “Look at those mean Republicans who are not willing to play ball and roll over at Obama’s commands.” Unfortunately, voting for Democratic legislation only means eroding further support from the conservative base. Let’s face it, why vote for a Republican who is voting 98% Democrat anyway? They should either change parties or change their last name to Schwarzenegger. Republican can counter that either the legislation would have passed without their support, or - when they are joined by Democrats - that their vote in opposition is bipartisan. We must also remember that the press is not our friend. For every dollar Democrats spend on marketing, Republicans should be spending at least two.

One key to using the forking tactic is to choose your battle carefully. We should not oppose bills for the simple sake of opposition. Opposition to the bloated, earmark filled monstrosity of a bill that Democrats are calling the stimulus should be a wonderful target. The voting public is very skeptical about deficit spending. Many of the blue dogs ran against Republican overspending. It is now time to force them into uncomfortable votes. Now is not the time for Republican to offer them cover. The fewer Republican votes for defit spending, the more it puts blue dogs in the hot seat. There will be other opportunities as well. I believe we blew an opportunity with the Treasury Secretary vote. We should not blow it on the vote for AG.

If we stay disciplined (Hey, stop laughing) hopefully after November 2010, we can stick a fork into a number of blue dog Democrats, and maybe even Democratic control of Congress.

A local high school marching band from Michigan was invited to march in Obama’s inaugural parade.  Things were going fine and dandy until your typical leftwing ultra-PC group complained that the high school’s mascott, the Chiefs, is insensitive to native Americans.  Unfortenately, instead of fighting this nonsense, the school has caved and will sew patches over the Chiefs logo on their uniforms.  They will also not carry their banner with the logo.  However this is not a permanent change.  It is only for the inauguration.  It is a very small silver lining that I don’t expect to last for long.  After all, this is a school that was invited (and accepted) an invitation to the left-wing president elect.  Two big thumbs down to school administrators for sacrificing principle to kiss Obama’s ring.  This is just another example of indoctrination over education at our government schools.  Get use to it kids, if you haven’t already.

Trot on over to the Club for Growth website. They have a very interesting election poll conducted on Sunday before the vote. It is commissioned by CfG so take the results with that grain of salt. Even so, the numbers are eye-popping. In my own opinion, it can be summed up as the following: the majority of voters favor fiscally conservative policies but they believe that the Republican party has strayed far from this foundation.

Political panic from the financial meltdown also played a big role. (This is my opinion, not from the poll.) Panic, by definition, is an irrational response to fear. The poll shows that the irrational response was to vote against their beliefs. They voted for the one who confidently offered easy solutions and against the guy who wasn’t confident.

Unfortunately, McCain is not a fundamental fiscal conservative. He said a lot of the right words and advocated some good policies, but it was based on gut feelings instead of a solid intellectual foundation. He didn’t understand enough to properly counter Obama’s pitch and the market meltdown. He could not close the sale.

Hat tip: Instapundit

In January, the Democrats will control the Presidency, the House and the Senate. To pass their agenda they do not need a single Republican vote (except to avoid a Senate filibuster). What they pass will be their budget and does not need to have any Republican fingerprints on it. Certainly Republicans should propose amendments, especially ones that strip away wasteful spending, but there is no need for final spending bills to have one Republican vote. It will not make one spit of difference for a Republican to vote for a Democratic bill. Democrats will still chase after a few opposition votes for the appearance of bipartisanship, but it will only be a fig leaf.

Do you think Pelosi and Reid can resist running up a huge spending deficit? Do you really think they can resist increasing taxes on people way below that magical $250,000 mark? Do you think Obama will actually veto any of the bills they send his way?

The time for Republican to start running the 2010 election is today. They need to keep track of the Democratic deficit and present the American voter with the bill in 2010. But for this to work, Republicans must keep their own voting records clean.

McCain is close to Obama in the polls but still behind. Maybe all the polls are wrong, but I would fee a lot better if the polls were pointing toward a McCain win. It does look like McCain is making headway. Here is an idea for more momentum. McCain should run not just against Obama, but also against Congressional Democrats. Let’s face the cold hard facts:
1. It is unlikely Republicans will retake the House or the Senate.
2. It is likely Democrats will improve their control in both chambers.

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but my Dad is. Dad is a small town electrician who also does some heating and cooling work and who is self-employed in a small business. He literally has a mom and pop operation. Mom is his secretary. They live and work in a little Midwest farming community. Dad only attended a tech school, worked for others for a while, and eventually bought the business from the previous owner when he retired. Dad has worked hard his whole life, not just at the business but also raising a family of four kids.

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VDH has an excellent post in The Corner discussing the nature of wisdom in light of the Vice Presidential debate. There are some who are criticizing Gov. Palin because she sounds folksy and so doesn’t come across as intellectually deep. On the other hand, Sen. Biden seems to have a command of the facts as well as a self-confidence that makes him appear smart. However, digging deeper into Biden’s facts, you find that a lot of his statements are factually challenged. Reading through this column I had the nagging feeling that Biden’s character sounded vaguely familiar. Then it hit me: Joe Bidden is a more successful version of Cliff Clavin. You remember Cliff from the TV show Cheers. He was the bar know-it-all who tried to sound convincing but almost always got his facts wrong. There is an idea for a great SNL skit. Get John Ratzenberger to play Cliff as Obama’s new VP candidate.

Judging by the number of commercials I have been seeing on tv, Michigan is definitely a battleground state. Obama has been hitting McCain on the economy, using McCain’s quote from the primary about not knowing as much about the economy as he should. The other Obama attack is predictably trying to tie McCain to Bush, ending with the McCain voting record of 90% matching Bush.

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Just got an email from Rep. McCotter (MI-11th district) that Moveon.org is protesting at his Livonia office this noon (Thursday, Aug. 7). Unfortunately I am at work and a good drive away, but I will update if I can find anything on the local news. I don’t see anything on McCotter’s website so I am copying the email below the fold.

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