Susan B. Anthony List Lobbies GOP on Strong 'Pro-Life Language' in Party's Upcoming 'Contract' Campaign Manifesto

Check out this piece from Erin McPike at RCP, "Some Supporters Fret as GOP Readies Agenda." Here's the key passage:

Just weeks before House Republican leaders are set to announce the contents of a proposed governing agenda if they retake the majority, some GOP politicians and grasstops activists are growing nervous about those plans ....

So far, House Republicans have shown discipline and stayed on message on jobs and the economy; there are 16 mentions of the word, "jobs," in the packet. But there are two problems with the current effort: One is the wing of activists primarily concerned with social issues, and the other is the possible size of the incoming class of GOP freshmen who collectively would be the reason for the party's return to power.

Many high-level conservative activists agree that the most pressing issue of this cycle is the economy, but some are not willing to let up on matters close to them, either.

In an interview, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser warned: "To only lead on one issue at a time is a non-sequitur." She added, "That's not real leadership." Dannenfelser's group advocates on behalf of women in politics who are pro-life, and she hopes to see substantial pro-life language in the House Republicans' agenda but is not entirely optimistic.

The 22-page recess packet of trial balloons does include an explicit ban on all federal funding for abortion. That's one item on Dannenfelser's list, but she has two more: requiring parental notification for abortion-seeking minors, and requiring physicians who perform abortions to notify women who are at least 20 weeks into their pregnancies that fetuses can feel pain in the process.

Said Dannenfelser, "The conservative base of the Republican Party is so strong at this moment, the most divisive thing that could happen would be to leave out the family values third of the issue base." Her group has undertaken its own small media blitz, "Life Speaking Out," to lobby the House GOP on abortion issues and prevent the omission. A release announcing the campaign noted, "Missing from the GOP's original Contract in 1994 was any emphasis on policies protecting the unborn. Pro-life legislation was not made a priority in the following Congress."

The group sent a letter to House Minority Leader John Boehner on September 2nd, arguing that:

The protection of women and their children from the violence of abortion and the protection of taxpayers from funding it must be an integral part of any legislative blueprint released by the leadership of the GOP, and should be included under a specific plank addressing family values.

As readers will recall, I take the big view on pro-life issues. And I expect the GOP to take the concerns of groups like Susan B. Anthony List very seriously.

Dancing

Theo loves this:

This is What America is All About

Giving everyone a chance to succeed? Hey, isn't that RAAAAACIST??!!

Hot ad from Allen West, via Weasel Zippers:

'The Reconquista is Here'

El Marco comments on "Machete":

More than just another movie exemplifying liberalism’s self-loathing and glorification of violence, Machete goes further in advocating the radical justification for leftist war against America. Machete is nothing less than Psycho-political incitement to violent revolution against American society and sovereignty.

Crowd at Glenn Beck Rally Seen From Above

I never did get a chance to post this pic, which is awesome. Who cares the exact number in attendance. Folks came out big time. The left's Media-Industrial-Complex just couldn't handle it. And not only that, this is another chance to throw my good friend Skye some linkage.

In Defense of Links

From Scott Rosenberg:

For 15 years, I’ve been doing most of my writing — aside from my two books — on the Web. When I do switch back to writing an article for print, I find myself feeling stymied. I can’t link!

Links have become an essential part of how I write, and also part of how I read. Given a choice between reading something on paper and reading it online, I much prefer reading online: I can follow up on an article’s links to explore source material, gain a deeper understanding of a complex point, or just look up some term of art with which I’m unfamiliar.

There is, I think, nothing unusual about this today. So I was flummoxed earlier this year when Nicholas Carr started a campaign against the humble link, and found at least partial support from some other estimable writers (among them Laura Miller, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Jason Fry and Ryan Chittum). Carr’s “delinkification” critique is part of a larger argument contained in his book The Shallows. I read the book this summer and plan to write about it more. But for now let’s zero in on Carr’s case against links, on pages 126-129 of his book as well as in his “delinkification” post.

The nub of Carr’s argument is that every link in a text imposes “a little cognitive load” that makes reading less efficient. Each link forces us to ask, “Should I click?” As a result, Carr wrote in the “delinkification” post, “People who read hypertext comprehend and learn less, studies show, than those who read the same material in printed form.”

This appearance of the word “hypertext” is a tipoff to one of the big problems with Carr’s argument: it mixes up two quite different visions of linking.

Interesting.

And don't feel bad about clicking away to RTWT.

Feisal Abdul Rauf — 'We Are Proceeding With the Community Center'

Or, "we are proceeding with the conquest mosque."

That's Imam Rauf, at the New York Times (via Memeorandum). And he claims:

I am very sensitive to the feelings of the families of victims of 9/11, as are my fellow leaders of many faiths. We will accordingly seek the support of those families, and the support of our vibrant neighborhood, as we consider the ultimate plans for the community center. Our objective has always been to make this a center for unification and healing.

Actually, not so sensitive, in fact. As the Imam also notes:

Our name, Cordoba, was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims.

Yes, created by Muslims, for the oppression and enslavement of non-Muslims. As Robert Spencer has noted regarding the "Cordoba Caliphate":

The name "Cordoba" has been marketed to gullible Americans as being a place where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in harmony and peace, but actually Medieval Muslim Spain enforced the dhimma and systematically oppressed the Jews and Christians, and was the site of a Muslim pogrom against the Jews in the year 1011 -- 1000 years before this mega-mosque is slated to open.

And interestingly, Imam Rauf's essay coincides with El Marco's latest photo-essay, "Islamic Triumphalism: Cruel Lessons From History for New York City - Part I." Pictured below is the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount, which was built to consecrate the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 637 CE. According to Wikipedia, "In light of the dual claims of both Judaism and Islam, it is one of the most contested religious sites in the world." Well, looks like things turned out exactly as planned. As El Marco notes at his essay:

Islamic Triumphalism has a very long and brutal history. The Dome of the Rock represents the first stop on Islam’s 1400 year path of conquest. Today the duel paths of terrorism and stealth jihad are making great inroads worldwide. Most New Yorkers and Americans are only just waking up to Islam’s accelerating push to implant Sharia law in western countries as well as large areas of Africa and Asia. The controversy of the mosque at ground zero has alerted Americans to how Islamic totalitarian Sharia law dictates world domination and the fact that radical islam must be opposed by free people.

Exactly. Sharia. This is what Imam Rauf wants for America. And as the Ground Zero Mosque development continues, sharia is the culmination of his vision for "multi-faith" cooperation — it's happening friends, and with the help of the left's Media-Industrial-Complex and netroots terror-appeasers. See Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, "What Shariah Law Is All About."

'My Trip to Al-Qaeda' — HBO Documentary

It's on, in about an hour:

And see Blake Hounshell, "Is al Qaeda Still Relevant?"

RELATED: I read Lawrence Wright's book when it first came out in hardback: The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.

Carly Fiorina Pulls Ahead of Scandal-Plagued Barbara Boxer — Incumbent Democrat Embroiled in Maxine Waters Pay-to Play Endorsement Scam

This would be big news, at RCP, "Fiorina Pulls Ahead of Boxer in California."

But Doug Ross has this as well: "Say It Ain't So, Babs: Barbara "Call me Ma'am" Boxer Ensnared in Maxine Waters' Ethical Roach Motel."

And Ed Morrissey adds this:

Democrats came to power in 2006 in large part by promising to “drain the swamp.” That doesn’t mean that individual members of both parties won’t commit ethics violations, but Boxer’s position as chair of the Senate’s enforcement panel while participating in Waters’ scheme certainly tells a story about the commitment to clean government in the Democratic Party.

RELATED: "Republicans Now Trusted on All Key Political Issues Over Democrats."

Should Political Science Be Relevant?

It's a question as old as the discipline, discussed at Inside Higher Ed. And it won't go away anytime soon. Political science for the most part is about theory-building and knife-sharpening. Even international relations can be an irrelevant pain sometimes, although I think my subfield has a better edge than American politics, surprisingly. (IR sees lots of cross-pollination from the super-scholarly literature to the popular magazines like Foreign Policy.)

In any case, the American Political Science Association held its annunal meeting over the Labor Day weekend, so there's some follow-up buzz going around. At the image below is Ezra Klein, and also Matthew Yglesias, c/o The Monkey Cage. And my sense is that's another reason for the dismal prospects for political science, the discipline's disastrous left-wing bias. Sure, there are lots of professors who are rigorous and avoid hack partisanship, but as a whole I'm underwhelmed by the attempts. (Henry Farrell was at APSA as well, and earlier this year, after repeated comments at Crooked Timber, he never did respond to my queries on the lies of the WikiLeaks Apache video — such otherwise smart people, so bogged down with deathly ideology.)

Anyway, an interesting passage from Inside Higher Ed.

One of the most biting critiques came from Bo Rothstein, the August Röhss Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden. Rothstein, who noted that this was his 20th APSA meeting and who has held visiting professorships at several leading universities in the United States, said that maybe the problem to discuss isn't whether political science is relevant, but whether American political science is relevant.

"If you want to be relevant as a discipline," he said, "you have to recruit people who want to be relevant." And in this respect, he said, American political science departments are not doing well. He described his experiences teaching at Harvard University, where he was tremendously impressed with the 20 seniors in his seminar on comparative politics. One day he asked how many were planning to go to graduate school in political science and was "stunned" to find out that the students -- many of them idealistic about changing the world -- had to a person ruled that out in favor of law school. Their view was that "to be relevant, you have to have a law degree."

In Sweden, Rothstein said, this would be viewed as a terrible thing. "No such persons" like those Harvard seniors he taught "would dream of going to law school," which they would see as "boring and technical." But while American universities tell those who want to change the world to go to law school, they attract other kinds of students to grad school. "I was not at all impressed by the graduate students" at Harvard, he said. "They wanted to stay away from anything relevant."

America at Risk

This is a Newt Gingrich production (via Gateway Pundit). And since he's got Melanie Phillips featured at the interviews, I'm giving the Scozzafava-backing RINO the benefit of the doubt:

Check the America at Risk homepage as well.

'I Am Tired of Being Told That We Need to Sensitive to the Muslim Culture'

That's Just-a-Grunt, at JammieWearingFool, on the controversy surrounding the planned Koran burnings. And I agree, although there's something about burning the Islamic holy book that doesn't feel quite right. Burning books doesn't feel quite right, come to think of it. That said, I doubt General David Petraeus made a wise decision to wade into the debate on the alleged "anti-Muslim backlash." And I seriously doubt that burning the Koran is going to make that much difference in the level of insurgent recruitment, etc. Americans are being targeted, and jihadis are joining, just for Americans being Americans. Perhaps Koran-burnings do inflame Muslim passions and fuel anti-American violence. What's more likely is that Koran-burnings fuel the leftist Media-Industrial-Complex in its journalistic jihad against the American right. See ABC News, for example, "Anti-Islam Rhetoric Heats Up Ahead of 9/11: Muslim Groups Prepare for Wave of Anti-Islamic Sentiment as Ninth Anniversary of 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Approach."

After reading this stuff, I'm more likely to side with Just-a-Grunt when push comes to shove. The media proves the point. We are caving to PC sensibilities, and THAT's what's going get everyone killed in the end. Not a few ignorant pastors in Florida. More at Bare Naked Islam, "Muslims show absolutely no concern for non-Muslim sensitivities. Why should we respect theirs?"

Democrat Wipe Out

Dan Collins posts The Ventures, "Wipe Out," as the metaphor for the coming epic Democrat Party blowout in November. Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a violent train wreck, like in the conclusion to "The Legend of Zorro" (at about 45 seconds). I can hear Obama-Pelosi-Reid screaming in horror from my house:

Indeed, how about a little roundup to that effect:

* ABC News, "Poll: Revolt Against Status Quo Gives Republicans Record Lead in 2010 Midterms."

* CNN, "Political handicapper ups prediction on GOP gains," and "Another top political handicapper forecasts larger GOP gains."

* Politico, "Latest polls predict a blow-out loss for Democrats in November."

* Wall Street Journal, "Get Ready for an Anti-Incumbent Wave."

* Washington Post, "Republicans making gains against Democrats ahead of midterm elections."

We Will Never Surrender

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Geert Wilders: We will NEVER give in, we will NEVER give up, we will NEVER surrender...Official Trailer Islam Rising."

From Phyllis Chesler: TIME Magazine’s Latest Blood Libel About Israel

I'm going to have to stop off at Barnes and Noble to read the whole thing, since Time posts only an excerpt, but I trust Phyllis Chesler's analysis:

The Jewish insistence on life may be the key to our survival as a people despite ceaseless persecution. It might be the lesson, the model, for all humanity in an era of genocides, civil wars, torture chambers, tyrannies, and totalitarian regimes. Why is TIME turning things on their head and refusing to recognize the courage and the heroism of Jewish Israelis who choose to live in the moment when the moment is all they have? Against all odds, the Jews simply refuse to give up.

Added: I see Time's essay is garnering some attention around the 'sphere. See Victor Davis Hanson, "For the Jews in Israel, Money Trumps All?":

I know it’s commonplace to read in the latest issue of Time or Newsweek that Obama is a god, that Islamophobic Americans are collectively prejudiced against Muslims, that the response after 9/11 was overblown and unnecessary (over 30 subsequent terrorist plots have been foiled, and, for some reason, renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, Predators, intercepts, etc., have all been embraced by the Obama administration), but the recent Time piece on Israel by a Karl Vick is probably the most anti-Semitic essay I have ever read in a mainstream publication.

Hanson's on to something. See also Bret Stephens, "Time magazine adds its voice to the chorus of those attempting to delegitimize the Jewish state."

Here's more, from Daniel Gordis, "Acceptable in Polite Society."

Obama's 'Like a Dog' Speech at the Milwaukee Laborfest

I spent yesterday afternoon writing a book review of Markos Moultisas' American Taliban, and also watching "The Watchmen" on cable. I therefore didn't pay much attention to President Obama's Labor Day politicking. But lots of folks are talking about his speech at the Milwaukee Laborfest. The key passage is at the video, but be sure to check William Jacobson's longer analysis of the speech itself:

Hearts Are Broken, Everyday...

Linkmaster Smith posted a DOUBLE-BONANZA RULE 5 EXTRAVAGANZA over the holiday weekend. See, "Rule 5 Sunday Part 1," and "Rule 5 Sunday Part 2: Holiday Extra!" The latter is enhanced with some Jewel loveliness. My first baby boy used to play this song over and over on our cheap Sony CD player back in the day. The strumming guitar is kinda like a lullaby, so it makes sense that a 1 year-old would get hooked. I just think Jewel's a down-home kinda woman. Enjoy:

Misunderstanding Markos Moulitsas and American Taliban

Well, folks might have noticed the photo of Markos Moulitsas' new book at one of my throwaway posts this afternoon. I'm almost done with the book. And I was going to hold off on a review, but folks are speaking out on it now, so what the heck?

As far as I've seen among leftists, only Jamelle Bouie's actually read the book, and can thus comment on it with at least minimal knowledge. Significantly, we also have Kevin Drum's comments on American Taliban. He endorses the book while announcing no plans to read it at the same time. And note the ideological affirmation and reassurance as well:

I haven't read American Taliban and don't plan to. I figure I already dislike the American right wing enough, so there's little need to dump another load of fuel onto my own personal mental bonfire.

And that's just the thing. "Dislike" for the American right is SOP with these people. So it's interesting that Jamelle Bouie attempts to distance the progressive left from the extremist ravings of Markos Moulitsas. Only problem is that Markos Moulitsas is the progressive left, that is, he's perfectly representative of the extreme neo-socialism that's become mainstream in Democratic Party politics. Moreover, Moulitsas' endorsement of take-no-prisoners secular demonology is simply the going game of the Democrat Party netroots base. So note two things: (1) Why should anyone be surprised at the content of American Taliban; and (2) why should anyone begrudge Markos Moulitsas for putting pen to paper (or to pixels) to lay out the neo-communist critique of the (perceived) contemporary right wing of American politics? This is what these folks do. The book is an outrage to read, sure, but it's an outrage to read any top blog of the current leftosphere? Indeed, Moulitsas' book reads like one long epic blog post at Daily Kos. Fact is, American Taliban started as a blog post in 2006, and then was crafted into a book. It's not scholarly. In fact, there are no footnotes to document the majority of the outrageous claims offered. What's important to note is Moulitsas' tactic of finding the most out-of-the-mainstream personalities and foisting these off as mainstream conservatives. It's a smear-by-numbers approach that at times pulls in top Republicans like Sarah Palin, etc., adds a couple of the more colorful quotes from said personalities, and voilà! You're got the modern conservative movement 100 percent equivalent to the medieval barbarian Taliban, REAL TERRORISTS who cut off noses of Afghan women and behead apostates from the Islamist creed, and not to mention Americans such as Daniel Pearl. It's absurd, of course. But it's not exceptional. And not only that, the MFM has elevated Moulitsas and Daily Kos to the elite media/Democrat Party establishment. THIS IS the inside game on today's left. So again, this should be no surprise.

Let me just give one example from the book, so folks'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Here's the representative quote from American Taliban, from pp. 50-51:

In the presidential election of 2008, John McCain thought it hilarious to sing, to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann," "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran ..." And the American Taliban's latest enemy de jour, Iran, remains an obsessive target for those who don't believe America has suffered enough war in the past decade. Sarah Palin, for example, thought it would be fantastic as a way for Obama to cynically secure his re-election campaign. "Say [Obama] played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but --- that changes the dynamic in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years."

These political fundamentalists, whether Islamic or American, have zero problem playing the war card for domestic gain, sending our bravest to die in distant wars as thoughtlessly as they would move pieces around a game of Risk. Such reckless warmongering behavior results in death and destruction, all in the service to their god and their political ambitions.

Yet, as bad as it is when the American Taliban direct such violent sentiment to our external enemies, it is a direct threat to our democracy when aimed at domestic targets.

I've highlighted that last clause, because that really does sum up Markos Moulitsas' thesis and political agenda. To wit: It is not fanatical global jihad that is the greatest threat to the American democracy --- an existential ideological movement that would be sweeping up in triumphant conquest throughout the Third World, and a bit of the First, if it wasn't for American military power standing guard. It is folks like John McCain, a decorated Vietnam war veteran who gave almost six years of his life to North Vietnamese communist torture and imprisonment, and Sarah Palin, a citizen-politician with five kids who was plucked from relative obscurity to be the 2008 GOP running-mate, who now threaten to destroy the American way of life as representative of some kind of domestic warmongering conservative jihad against the heartland. Yeah, you can see perhaps why some folks like Jamelle Bouie might cringe at such non-reality-based diatribes. But Moulitsas isn't an outlier: American Taliban tells us exactly how the left's hardline partisans see the GOP. And American Taliban wonderfully clarifies the scope of political battle for those on the right who actually live a reality-based life, people who know that it's in fact the alliance between Islam and socialism --- at home and abroad --- that is the genuine threat to our prosperity and perseverance. It's chilling but it's fact. The truth is that Markos Moulitsas is not an "embarrassment to the left," as Doc Zero argues over at Hot Air. Markos Moulitsas is the left. And the sooner folks get that lesson down cold, the faster upstanding folks of moral clarity and values will be able to defeat them.

Added: Digby hasn't read the book either, but still feels confident in claiming:

Markos has written a polemic called "American Taliban" in which he draws an ironic comparison between the far right in American politics and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He isn't saying they are interchangeable. That's ridiculous. Obviously, one exists within a secular Western democracy with a rule of law and the other well ... doesn't.

No, Digby, American Taliban's whole point is that the American religious right is perfectly indistinguishable from the Taliban of South Asia --- and the "American Taliban" is the bigger threat to the U.S. than global jihad. Folks really need to read this book and quit lying about what is or isn't said there. Digby is right up there with Markos Moulitsas as a crazed leftist demonologist who wants a revolution to topple the traditional bases of American politics, if not the constitutional regime itself. Don't be fooled by these people. THEY ARE ALLIED with the Taliban, al Qaeda, and global jihad to destroy American freedom. It's plain as day. I write about it all the time. But naturally very few are willing to call it for what it is, and forget about the MFM. They're in the tank. And unsurprisingly, Digby, in a previous post, isn't shy about endorsing the "American Taliban" theory of politics (even though she's not even read the book):

The inconvenient truth here is that these people are dangerous because their worldview is dangerous. Lethal even. And somebody has to have the guts and to call them on it in their own terms. This "tired genre" of "our opponents are monsters" has been decidedly dominated by one side and the consequences have been grave. We have a fight on our hands and the only real question left is whether anyone on our side is willing to wage it.

Game on, as far as I'm concerned. Knowing one's enemies is half the battle, and these folks are putting the intel right in our laps.

Watching 'The Watchmen'

Right now, on Cinemax:

'Resident Evil: Afterlife' — In Theaters This Friday

Well, since I'm checking out Milla Jovovich, thought I'd post the trailer of her new flick, out Friday: