Yeah, this is a hat tip to a 2-day-old Instapundit post, which is eons in blog time, but I thought it worth highlighting. In this story about how the tiny country of the United Arab Emirates beats the United States per capita in putting “demand on the global ecosystem”, this line is mentioned about the second place US.

The United States is no longer bound by Kyoto, which the Bush administration rejected after taking office in 2001.

But as Glenn notes, based on a passage from what he calls “the not especially Bush-friendly Wikipedia”, that is simply not true. You can chalk it up to “mere” incompetence or “simple” laziness, but it seems that almost always when the mainstream media get incompetent or lazy, conservatives and/or Republicans suffer (and liberals and/or Democrats look better). Honestly, when’s the last time any news source (or your friendly, neighborhood liberal buddy) correctly noted that Clinton never submitted it to the Senate for ratification? If your going to insist that Bush”rejected” it, you must say the same thing about Clinton & Gore (notwithstanding Gore’s “symbolic” signing of it; liberal good intentions don’t count if they don’t produce results).

Somehow, the fact that 80-90% of journalists vote Democrat just doesn’t seem to register with folks like Eric Alterman who insist that the media lean conservative. That Bush “rejected” Kyoto is such a Known Fact(tm) in those circles does make its way into reporting, and it ain’t the only thing that does.

Technorati Tags: Associated Press, liberal media, Kyoto, global warming

No contest in that match, according to Hugo.

In addition, you tell me if there is an unstated threat when, after ‘scolding’ the Church “for criticizing his decision not to renew the license of an opposition-aligned television station,” Chavez said:

the state respects the church. The church should respect the state. I wouldn’t like to return to the times of confrontation with Venezuelan bishops, but it’s not up to me. It’s up to the Venezuelan bishops.

Translation: If there is a conflict between me and the Church, the Church must be wrong. If Chavez was the first to spew the sort of nonsense he does so often, he might be cutely incorrigible.

But this isn’t the first time faith has heard in the distance the report of socialist war drums. What then?

Hat tip to Acton Institute’s PowerBlog, a general must read.

Technorati Tags: Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, church, government

Joe Carter at The Evangelical Outpost takes an honest look at the religious faith of America’s Founding Fathers. His first conclusion is:

With the exception of the handful of orthodox Christians, the majority of the founding fathers subscribed to a religious view that we would nowadays classify as Unitarianism. A rejection of Trinitarianism clearly puts one outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity. We should not, therefore, claim that a historical figure is a “Christian” when we would consider someone who held those beliefs today to be a heretic. The leaders during the revolutionary era may have subscribed to a Judeo-Christian view of morality, but few of them were orthodox believers.

However, his second conclusion is:

While we Christians can claim few founding fathers as fellow believers, the atheistic secularist can claim none. Not one of the significant leaders was an atheist, much less subscribed to the modern idea of secularism.

Essentially, Carter says that the whole modern idea of government working from a purely secular/atheist point of view is not something the Founders would have generally recognized as their idea. An “established religion” meant something specific to them, and it wasn”t that government should be devoid of religious influence at all. (Military chaplains were set up by these same fellas, as an example.) The Michael Newdows of the country should take note.

Technorati Tags: government, religion, secularism, atheism, founding fathers, america, establishment clause, first amendment

Thus is the title of Danny Carlton’s description of how dealing with a little discomfort in the short term leads to a better outcome in the long term, if you have the maturity to both stop licking your lips and stop raising taxes. Democrats have made it easier for Congress to raise taxes (surprise, surprise) enabling what he calls Chapped Lips Syndrome as applied to society.

Attacking the wealthy feels good in a myopic, class-envy, immature way, but makes the economy suffer. If the economy suffers, those with less will inevitably suffer more. A mature, intelligent society will encourage business (within reasonable restrictions) and solve the problem. The immature society will continue to attack the rich and make the economy continue to slide downhill.

Technorati Tags: taxes, economics, Democrats

…or not.

House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.

But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.

I certainly don’t begrudge the Democrats of using their new majority, but the next time you hear them talking about “bipartisanship” or “working together”, just remember this. Partisanship has a long history in Washington, on both sides. Nothing’s changed.

Technorati Tags: bipartisanship, Democrat

The New York Times asked, “Are we cheap?” Liberals give their opinions on that.

“Yes,” they say. Former President Carter recently said the rich states “don’t give a damn” about people in poor countries. And when it comes to helping the needy in poor countries, U2 singer Bono says, “It’s the crumbs off our tables that we offer these countries.”

Crumbs because many other countries, such as Norway, Portugal and Japan, give a larger share of their wealth to needy countries.

The United States gave out $20 billion in foreign aid last year, but as a percentage of our wealth, we rank 21st out of the 22 major donor countries.

Actress Angelina Jolie is horrified by it.

“It’s disgusting. It really is disgusting,” she said. “I think most American people, you know, really do think we give more. And I know that they would if they could understand how little they give and how much more we can afford to give, absolutely, without even noticing it.”

But what these folks are ignoring is that America is one of the most generous countries in the world when you look at how we take personal responsibility for our charity. As much as the general consensus has inched more and more towards the idea that it’s the government’s job, a very large segment of our population understands that “rugged individualism” not only means being personally independent but also means taking personal responsibility for the needy, and not shoving it off onto some other group or institution. Predictably however, those who do gauge things by institutional or governmental charity are blind to the reality of the generous America.
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From James Taranto comes word that indeed we may have a Diebold lawsuit after all. One guess which side wants to sue.

One advantage of Democrats winning last week’s elections is that we’ve been spared all the complaints about “stolen” elections. Well, almost all of them. In Florida’s 13th District, vacated by Rep. Katherine Harris for her ill-starred Senate run, Republican Vern Buchanan eked out a victory by about 400 votes. Angry Left teen idol Markos “Kos” Moulitsas is crying foul:

Down in Florida, an epic battle is brewing over the electronic Diebold voting machines that ate 18,000 votes for Democrat Christine Jennings in FL-13 and cost her the election.

Not only is an expensive recount in the cards, but campaign and DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] lawyers are flocking down, demanding the state freeze the machines for inspection.

These are the opening salvos in what will be the battle to end Diebold.

But only 36 people have given via our Blue Majority Act Blue page for the legal battles ahead.

To put it bluntly, to anyone who has ever complained about Diebold, this is your chance to put your money where your mouth is. No more talk needed. No more advocacy needed. This is a real-world, legal frontal assault on those electronic voting machines.

If we win this battle, you’ll be able to kiss Diebold goodbye.

A little later in the day, Kos had an update:

Update II: Machines in FL-13 were made by ES&S. Same difference.

Taranto notes that ES&S, Electric Systems and Software, Inc, is a Diebold competitor. Again, it’s the Left putting up a heads-I-win-tails-you-cheated scenario, even if the “evil” Diebold isn’t involved. How unserious and knee-jerk can you get?

Technorati Tags: election, Diebold, Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas, Florida

OK, they weren’t actually brought up on any for the performance of their voting machines. But that’s the point. Democrats were all prepared with their lawyers should they not win where they thought they should. But they won, so there were suddenly no voting irregularities. An extended family member of mine sent this along. He’s not all that into politics by his own admission, but this really made an impression on him. This is a short letter to the editor at the Cincinnati Enquirer.

With the recent incredibly close and important election results in the senatorial races, I have not heard the tremendous whining and wild claims of fraud, voter intimidation, voting machine failures, etc.

Does that mean that America has solved all of its vast voting issues, or that the Democrats won this time?

I’d add, does that mean that we won’t hear of any problems even when Republicans win in the future?

My sister pointed out that George Allen proved what a good sport he is by not calling for a recount in his razor-thin loss to Jim Webb. Would that more politicians (and party machinery) were like that.

Technorati Tags: election, Diebold, George Allen, recount

And so it begins.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 – Democratic leaders in the Senate vowed on Sunday to use their new Congressional majority to press for troop reductions in Iraq within a matter of months, stepping up pressure on the administration just as President Bush is to be interviewed by a bipartisan panel examining future strategy for the war.

The Democrats – the incoming majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada; the incoming Armed Services Committee chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan; and the incoming Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware – said a phased redeployment of troops would be their top priority when the new Congress convenes in January, even before an investigation of the conduct of the war.

“We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,” Mr. Levin said in an appearance on the ABC News program “This Week.” In a telephone interview later, Mr. Levin added, “The point of this is to signal to the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over and that they are going to have to solve their own problems.”

This is a clear violation of truth in labelling. Remember, one year ago, the Democrats voted overwhelmingly against this very maneuver. Their main voice in this, John Murtha, called for it and wrote his own resolution on the matter. The Republicans didn’t bring Murtha’s up for a vote, but did bring up a virtually identical one that the Dems were completely against. See here for a comparison. They wouldn’t put their votes where their mouths were, and apparently didn’t want to be considered the Cut and Run Party. But now that they have control of the legislature, and think they have a mandate for their position, they’re going full steam ahead.

This is most likely a huge misreading of the recent election results. The NY Times wrote an article on one of their polls, which, unsurprisingly, tilts left (e.g. they ask which party is more likely to bring the troops home, but doesn’t ask which party is more likely to achieve victory). What isn’t covered but requires you to click on a sidebar link is one of the questions about strategy. Only 27% want to remove all troops from Iraq. Those who want to continue the current strategy (8%) plus those who want a change in strategy (61%) compromise a vast majority (69%) that want, not this retreat the Democrats will propose, but a course that will lead to something that the poll respondents consider victory.

Yes, everyone’s got their own idea of what this should be (mine is an Iraqi democracy that can defend itself, thought you really can’t call the removal of Hussein’s regime and the killing and capturing of many top al Qaeda honchos a complete “defeat”). But the point is that the Democrats are looking at a general dissatisfaction with the prosecution of the war and mistaking it for dissatisfaction with simply being in the war.

This is the Vietnam blunder; bailing out of an unpopular war before the job’s done, and allowing the region to descend into chaos for a generation. Until Iraq is ready to stand on its own, someone else will have to hold them up. Either it’ll be us, or it’ll be one of the many other factions eager to toast the fledgling democracy. The Democrats are either refusing to remember history, or are playing politics with the lives of the Iraqis, whom they claim concern over when they hear civilian casualty figures. And yet they wish to set us on a course that will condemn far more to death in a struggle for power and, based on the winner, that struggle’s aftermath.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Democrats, troop reductions, Harry Reid, Carl Levin, Joe Biden, election, Vietnam

As of now, Democrats have been given control of the House of Representatives, and there are two outstanding races in the Senate that will determine who controls that chamber. This is definitely going to make it harder for Republicans to get their initiatives through, to be sure, but let’s look a little closer.

As Michelle Malkin notes, Republicans may have lost but conservatism did not. She lists a number of indicators.

Property rights initiatives limiting eminent domain won big. MCRI, the anti-racial preference measure, passed resoundingly. Congressman Tom Tancredo, the GOP’s leading warrior against illegal immigration–opposed by both the open-borders Left and the open-borders White House–won a fifth term handily. Gay marriage bans won approval in 3 states. And as of this writing, the oil tax initiative, Prop. 87–backed by deep-pocketed Hollywood libs, is trailing badly in California.

While an AP article headlines 3 items that could be considered conservative setbacks–rejection of SD abortion ban and AZ gay marriage ban, and approval of stem cell research in Missouri–it lists later on in the article all the items that could be considered conservative wins, and on balance conservatism did very well. Written after Malkin’s post, it notes 8 states that banned gay marriage, as well as the aforementioned sunsetting of affirmative action in Michigan, and a number of anti-illegal-immigration initiatives in Arizona. (And the Missouri stem cell amendment, as I noted previously, was passed with a margin that could suggest that if it had been worded honestly, it may not have passed at all.)

Also, as ScrappleFace notes, the win for Lieberman and the loss for Lincoln Chafee could be considered a gain of 2 seats for Republicans. >grin< So unlike Democrats after previous elections, you won't find Republicans hiding under the covers for days, packing for their move to Canada, or suing Diebold. (Gee, where did all those Democrats go that insisted that Diebold machines were “fixed”? Is it OK when they’re “fixed” for Democrats? Love the choice; either Democrats win, or someone cheated.) The victory for Democrats was more a typical 6-year-itch midterm result mixed with some “throw the bums out” mentality with some hope by Republican voters that this may wake up the Republican lawmakers, as I noted in this thread. I think that there was plenty of deserved anger with Republican lawmakers, but this, in my opinion, wasn’t the way to express it.

And don’t forget all the moderate to conservative Democrats that were elected, including many former Republicans like Webb in Virginia (though the “elected” part has yet to be determined there).

What will they do with that platform?

Will they try, for instance, to impeach the president? Or will they stick to Ms Pelosi’s stated goal of leadership?

Probably the latter. Many of the new intake are moderate Democrats, conservatives even, who are not looking for an ideological fight.

Could they have won without pro-Iraq-war, anti-abortion Democrats? Given some of the margins of victory, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they’d all looked more like Ned Lamont.

So Republicans should not, and most likely won’t, go sulking around your office. Yeah we’re disappointed, and we deserved much of what we got. On the other hand, apart from party label, this election shows that the American public in general still leans conservative.

Technorati Tags: election, republican, democrat, conservative, government, congress