From Jack Cashill:
It’s Torquemada Time In The Heartland
In the late 15th century, the government of Spain, in defiance of the pope’s call for due process, decided it was time to root out the heretics and subversives in its midst.
And so they contracted with one Tomás de Torquemada, appointed him Grand Inquisitor, and let him loose. (more…)
So what should the Grand Old Party do to resurrect itself enough to mount some semblance of resistance to the advancing Democratic juggernaut? The answer is that it needs intellectual coherence around a powerful idea, and that idea should be liberty. This is a principle that is both strong enough to intellectually moor the party in the way that those who want a “purer” GOP desire–and grand enough to appeal to a broad swath of the population, as those who advocate a more Big Tent approach recommend.
This would be the exact opposite of what Bush did. He, remarkably enough, managed to combine every anti-individual liberty idea from the right with every pro-big government policy from the left. From the right, Bush acquired: a super-hawkish foreign policy; contempt for civil liberties; and religiously informed positions on gay marriage, abortion and end-of-life issues. And from the left he got: high-spending ways, including the massive drug entitlement for seniors; expansive ideas about the federal government’s role in education policy; and the chutzpah, just before leaving, to engineer a massive government bailout of banks and auto companies.
NRO: The title of all-new Sacremanto Bee editorial is “Editorial: Time for reform – not for blame now voters have judged leaders; how will leaders take their rebuke?” Title of original editorial (content taken down at paper’s Web site, but NRO has the text): “You did it! Uh, so what now?”
Gov. Mark Sanford is taking the General Assembly to court after lawmakers required him to accept $350 million in disputed federal money by overriding his budget vetoes.
Sanford quickly announced the federal suit after the Senate voted 34-11 on a state budget that forces him to accept the money.
“We know a suit will be filed against us on this issue, and as such we’ve filed a suit tonight in response,” Sanford said in a prepared statement. “We believe the Legislature’s end-around move won’t pass constitutional muster.”
Unless this was some kind of ploy, the following appears to be the case, as reported by NRO:
Same-sex marriage hit a snag today in the Granite State, losing in a 188-186 vote in the state House. Not because legislators object to same-sex marriages, but because they apparently object to some priest having the freedom not to perform them:
The legislature had been asked to approve language that would give legal protections, including the right to decline to marry same-sex couples, to clergy and others affiliated with religious organizations. That wording was added by Governor John Lynch, a Democrat who promised to sign the bill if those changes were made…State Representative Steve Vaillancourt, a gay Republican from Manchester, was a leading voice against the amendment securing religious liberties, saying that the House should not be “bullied” by the governor.
Gov. Lynch has promised a veto unless his language is adopted.
Gov. Charlie Crist, now a U.S. Senate candidate, said Tuesday he would have made the “pragmatic” decision to vote for the $787 billion federal stimulus bill, differentiating himself from fellow-Republican opponent Marco Rubio and the man he is trying to replace – Mel Martinez.
Speaking to a politically mixed crowd in Daytona Beach, Crist emphasized his support for the bill as practical and pragmatic, though it would have meant crossing party lines. Only three Republican senators backed the stimulus bill, and Martinez wasn’t one of them.
Now Florida stands to get about $15 billion over the next two years through different stimulus grants.
“A lot of that $15 billion dollars you sent to Washington, D.C., and my view is we ought to get it back,” Crist told his audience. “Florida deserves her fair share.”
Benjamin Hodge writes at Race42012.com:
Perhaps it’s that eminent domain abuse so much more clearly, more entirely, and more immediately takes away freedom from an individual private citizen, when compared to the much more complex negative effects of Big Government (which both redistributes and causes opportunity costs for the private economy in ways that are difficult-to-clearly define). (more…)
Andy Roth at Club for Growth: “Via Edward Lopez, here’s a great Simpsons segment that mimicks Ayn Rand’s book, The Fountainhead, which I thought was 20 times better than Atlas Shrugged.”
