Republican Voters Split on Rick Perry's Statements on Social Security

USA Today, "Poll: Perry's Social Security view concerns some Republicans":

Republican voters are evenly split over whether Texas Gov. Rick Perry's outspoken stance on Social Security makes them more or less likely to support him for the presidential nomination, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, but they are worried that his views could cost him in the general election.

The survey, taken after the CNN/Tea Party Express debate among Republican contenders Monday, illustrates the complicated politics on the issue that has prompted the sharpest divide between Perry and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the contenders at the top of national polls.

Perry, the Texas governor, calls Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" for younger workers that needs to be fundamentally revamped for future recipients. One in five Republicans say that position makes them more likely to support him; one in five say it makes them less likely to do so. However, by more than 2-1, 37%-17%, Republicans predict Perry's position will hurt rather than help his chances of being elected president.

Keep reading.

A majority of both Republicans and independents says protecting Social Security, despite its problems, is most important. Also at Gallup, "Perry 'Ponzi Scheme' Remark Doesn't Faze Most Republicans: Solid Majority Believe Social Security Should Be Preserved." (Via Memeorandum.)

But see Charles Krauthammer, "A Ponzi scheme that should be fixed." As usual, Krauthammer's is the best article I've read on this in a long time.

Speaker John Boehner Speech at the Economic Club of Washington

At New York Times, "Boehner, in Washington Speech, Reaffirms No-Tax-Increase Position."

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Rips Michael Moore on Osama Bin Laden's 'Execution'

Michael Moore's repeating the same talking points I heard him spewing almost a year ago. Only 100 al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan? Sheesh. Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer faced more than half that when he saved 36 lives in 2009. And this week's attack on the NATO compound was an astonishingly effective siege of the central command of the international protection force. Unreal. And here's Moore again saying we shouldn't have killed Bin Laden. He was just another crazy guy in the world, or something. Watch. Elisabeth Hasselbeck let's him have it:

Frustrated Democrats Support Primary Challenge Against Obama

At The Hill, "Some frustrated Democrats want to see Obama primary challenge."

Hey, let's see it. Recall the 1992 analogy again, where Pat Buchanan won 38 percent in New Hampshire, a harbinger to G.H.W. Bush's loss in the general election.

Los Angeles Times Readers Respond Viscerally to 'Evangelical Pastors Heed a Political Calling for 2012'

The original article ran last Sunday, on September 11.

And now from the letters to the editor, "Faith and politics in America..."

The evangelical pastors featured in The Times' story cannot be faulted for their political activism, which is protected under the 1st Amendment. The problem is their distortion of the Christian faith.

How can any sensitive Christian support the death penalty, the proliferation of firearms, unjust wars of choice, the dismantling of the social safety net, increased riches for the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, the rejection of medical coverage for the poor, the continual domination of American life by corporations and the rest of the Bachmann-Perry agenda?

When a significant slice of the church loses its hold on everything Jesus stood for, the problem is religious heresy, not political activism.

Charles H. Bayer

Claremont

More letters at the link, including one with the worn cliche, "what would Jesus do"?

Marine Who Saved 36 in Afghanistan Gets Medal of Honor

I was at lunch today and watched President Obama award the medal to Cpl. Dakota Meyer.

At Los Angeles Times, "Marine is awarded rare Medal of Honor at White House":

The desperate call crackled over the radio in predawn darkness: A small team of American and Afghan troops was pinned down in a remote village under withering fire from three sides. A young lieutenant was begging for artillery or air support. Without it, he yelled, "we are going to die out here."

Can't be done, came the reply. It might kill civilians.

Less than a mile away, Marine Cpl. Dakota L. Meyer heard the radio exchange in agony. His buddies were dying, yet Meyer was under orders to stay where he was. Four times he requested permission to go to their aid, and four times he was refused.

After two hours, Meyer decided to defy his superiors. The powerfully built 21-year-old with a soft Kentucky drawl climbed into the turret of a gun truck mounted with a .50-caliber machine gun and, with another Marine driving, raced toward the battle.

On Thursday, Meyer was at the White House to receive the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor, for saving the lives of 36 combatants — 13 Americans and 23 Afghans — and personally killing at least eight Taliban fighters that day, Sept. 8, 2009. He is the first living Marine to receive the award since the Vietnam War.

Meyer, now 23, stood at attention in dress uniform as President Obama recounted what happened in the village of Ganjigal in Afghanistan's Kunar province.

Added: Bing West's essay, "The Afghan Rescue Mission Behind Today's Medal of Honor."

The Beauty of Moral Excellence

Peter Wehner has an interesting piece, at Commentary, "Our Lack of Moral Vocabulary":

Earlier this week, David Brooks wrote a fascinating column on young people’s moral lives, basing it on hundreds of in-depth interviews with young adults across America conducted by the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith and his team.

The results, according to Brooks, were “depressing” — not so much because of how they lived but because of “how bad they are at thinking and talking about moral issues.” Asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life, what we find is “young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don’t have the categories or vocabulary to do so.” What Smith and his team found is an atmosphere of “extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism.” The reason, in part, is because they have not been given the resources — by schools, institutions and families — to “cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations, to check behaviors that may be degrading.”

This is part of a generations-long phenomenon. In his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom wrote, “There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.” And the university, Bloom argued, is unwilling to offer a distinctive visage to young people. The guiding philosophy of the academy is there are no first principles, no coherent ways to interpret the world in which we live.

But this is merely a pose. No one, not even a liberal academic, is a true relativist. Scratch below the surface and you’ll find them to be (morally) judgmental toward those who want to discriminate based on race, gender, or sexual orientation. They will likely have strong (moral) views on criminalizing abortion, restricting marriage to one man and one woman, anthropogenic global warming, water-boarding terrorists, rendition, Israeli settlements, profits for oil companies, and cutting taxes for the rich. The left is adamant: women have a “right” to an abortion and gays have a “right” to marry. These rights are viewed as a priori and inviolate. And no one, not even a progressive liberal arts professor, is morally indifferent to someone who wants to rape his wife, molest his children, and steal his iPad. It is fashionable to insist we don’t want to “impose our values” on others or “legislate morality.” But the reality is we do so all the time, on an endless number of issues, and no civilization could survive without doing so. The question, really, is which moral standards do we aspire to? What is the ethical code we use to judge ourselves and others?

Keep reading, and note:

One final thought: what is often lost in this debate is that human fulfillment and happiness isn’t found in a world stripped of moral beliefs. Despair, not joy, is found among those who believe in nothing, who find purpose in nothing, who fight for nothing. Because of human anthropology – because we are moral creatures, made in the image of God – we are meant to delight in His ways, to live lives of high moral purpose. All of us fail more often than we should. But we cannot give up on the aspiration; nor can we allow our hearts to grow cold and indifferent, unmoved by the beauty of moral excellence.

But check Brooks' essay, which strikes a chord with my experience. I do think young people are deeply moral, but they lack an expressive vocabulary to articulate these beliefs in the public realm.

Silicon Valley Gives Conservative Christians a Boost

At Los Angeles Times:

Silicon Valley, the politically liberal technology hub, is an unlikely incubator of conservative Christian activism.

But a group of its venture capitalists is backing an ambitious project that seeks to affect the 2012 election by registering 5 million new conservative Christians to vote.

The nonprofit organization United in Purpose is using sophisticated data-mining techniques to compile a database of every unregistered born-again and evangelical Christian and conservative Catholic in the country.

Through partnerships with Christian organizers and antiabortion groups, United in Purpose hopes to recruit 100,000 "champions" to identify unregistered Christians and get them to the polls as part of its Champion the Vote project. Profiles drawn from its database, which numbers more than 120 million people, will enable organizers to target potential voters with emails and Web videos tailored to their interests.

Well, now's the time, if there ever was one. I'm still not holding my hopes out for any political breakthroughs in California, but this sounds nice.

'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic'

Okay, here's my Thursday placeholder until later.

Enjoy Sting, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic":

From yesterday morning's drive time at The Sound LA:

8:03 - Bennie And The Jets by Elton John

8:08 - What I Like About You by Romantics

8:18 - Little By Little by Robert Plant

8:23 - Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd

8:32 - Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix

8:35 - Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith

8:47 - Question by Moody Blues

8:52 - Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by Police

More blogging tonight.

New York-9 and the Democratic Coalition

I love this story, from Sean Trende, at RealClearPolitics (via Memeorandum).

It's a political science-y essay, with charts and graphs. And here's a clue: "Obama has had problems with working-class whites in particular."

Britney Spears Glamour UK October 2011

I like it: "Britney Spears is this month's cover girl and she's looking better than ever!"

And see: "Britney Spears: Then And Now." She's all grown up!

Via Britney on Twitter.

RELATED: At Randy's Roundtable, "Midweek Rule 5 Break: Nicci Pisari."

After New York Race, G.O.P. Sees Ripple in Jewish Vote

Now get this, at New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Not since Jimmy Carter in 1980 has a Democrat running for president failed to win a lopsided majority of the Jewish vote. This has been true during times of peace or war, and even when there has been deep acrimony between the White House and the Israeli government.

Republicans see a chance to change that in 2012, with President Obama locked in a tense relationship with Israel’s leaders and criticized by many American Jews as being too tough on a close and favored ally. Tuesday’s Republican upset in New York’s Congressional election, they say, is a sign of bad things to come for Mr. Obama.

Sensing trouble, the Obama campaign and Democratic Party leaders have mobilized to solidify the president’s standing with Jewish voters. The Democratic National Committee has established a Jewish outreach program. The campaign is singling out Jewish groups, donors and other supporters with calls and e-mails to counter the Republican narrative that Mr. Obama is hostile to Israel.

More at the link.

And from the editors, who aren't please by developments, natch: "Israel and New York’s Ninth District."

F*** You, Douglas! — W. James Casper = COBAG = Repsac3!!

I'm just now getting to this, but W. James "Costanza" Casper = RACIST = Repsac3 had an entry for "civility week" earlier, at my blog post on "Tolerance of Islam":

Fuck you, Douglas...

You post about me, I'll almost certainly comment, like it or don't...

Cope.

(If you really wanted to be left alone, you wouldn't engage, would you?)

This is someone who has completely abandoned the slightest adherence to social norms and decency. So, for the record: I've never said no interaction. Idiot RACIST Repsac3 is BANNED from commenting at American Power. That is, NO ENGAGEMENT AT MY COMMENT THREADS, DUH!! Bird-brained W. James Casper, whose immorality is boundless, again reminds us of George Costanza. Click the image to watch. Unable to control his impulses, George eats a chocolate eclair out of the garbage pail. Jerry says to him, "Well, you my friend have crossed the line that divides man and bum. You are now a bum." And in our most recent despicable attack by RACIST Repsac3, our sick obsessive stalking asshat (and non-friend) has crossed the line that divides a restrained and respectable citizen from a profane and clinically deranged progresssive cobag: "You are now a complete cobag."

Congratulations!

Israel and Marriage Key Issues in New York Special Election

Two of my most important public policy issues.

From John McCormack, at Weekly Standard:

How did Republican Bob Turner pull off an 8-point win (54%-46%) in a district that gave Turner just 39% of the vote in 2010 and went 55% for Obama in 2008? Sure, it helped that the Democratic incumbent Anthony Weiner resigned in disgrace after he accidentally posted a lewd photo of himself, intended for a young woman, to his public Twitter account. But scandal alone wasn't enough to flip New York's 9th congressional district to Republicans. In early August a Siena poll showed Democrat David Weprin leading Turner 48% to 42%, but by late last week Siena showed Turner had pulled into the lead 50% to 44%.

o win in a Democratic district, Turner needed Democratic votes. The two issues that seem to have helped drive some of the district's traditionally Democratic voters to cast their ballots for Turner were Obama's Israel policy and Weprin's vote for same-sex marriage. Former Democratic New York City mayor Ed Koch endorsed Turner primarily to send a message to Obama on Israel. Democratic state senator Ruben Diaz backed Turner because of Weprin's vote on marriage. Democratic state assemblyman Dov Hikind says both issues, as well as dissatisfaction with Obama's failed economic policies, were "overriding" factors that led him to support Turner.

"This is an underlying issue that is extremely powerful issue," Hikind says of Weprin's vote for same-sex marriage. Weprin didn't merely vote for the bill. He got on the floor of the assembly and compared voting against same-sex marriage to "outlawing marriages between Jews and non-Jews or interracial marriages.”

"The fundamental message was 'I'm an orthodox Jew and gay marriage is perfectly fine,'" Hikind says of his Democratic colleague's speech. "To me, when he did that, he crossed every single line." Forty orthodox rabbis declared that orthodox Jews could not support Weprin.

Keep reading.

And yeah, he crossed every single line, ASFL.

Mexican Drug Cartels Hang Bodies Off Bridge as Warning to Social Media Users

At CNN: "Bodies hanging from bridge in Mexico are warning to social media users."

Justin Timberlake Photos Leaked After Mila Kunis Phone Hacked

Interesting.

At TMZ, "MILA KUNIS HACKED!" And Daily Mail, "Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake exposed as possible friends with benefits by hacker."

Plus, at IBT, "Mila Kunis Hacked, Compromising Photos of Justin Timberlake Leaked (PHOTOS)."

PREVIOUSLY: "Scarlett Johansson Nude Photos Leaked!"

Attack Watch

Or, at Michelle Malkin's, "Attaaaaack Waaaaaatch."

Plus: "Obama Campaign: AttackWatch Gains Over 100,000 Sign-Ups In Less Than 24 Hours."

Yeah, that oughta help. Not!

BONUS: "Attack Watch, new Obama campaign site to ‘fight smears,’ becomes laughing stock of the Internet."

U.S. Poverty Rates Hit 50-Year high

Obama promised change, and boy did he deliver. Change we haven't seen in nearly fifty years.

At LAT, "U.S. poverty totals hit a 50-year high":

Census Bureau's grim statistics show recession's lingering effects, as young adults move back home and 1 million more Americans go without health insurance.

Reporting from Washington — In a grim portrait of a nation in economic turmoil, the government reported that the number of people living in poverty last year surged to 46.2 million — the most in at least half a century — as 1 million more Americans went without health insurance and household incomes fell sharply.

The poverty rate for all Americans rose in 2010 for the third consecutive year, matching the 15.1% figure in 1993 and pushing many more young adults to double up or return to their parents' home to avoid joining the ranks of the poor.

Taken together, the annual income and poverty snapshot released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau underscored how the recession is casting a long shadow well after its official end in June 2009.

Continue reading.

Scarlett Johansson Nude Photos Leaked!

Hey, better late than never.

At Wall Street Journal, "Scarlett Johansson Nude Photos Part of FBI Probe of Digital Theft."

And at What Would Tyler Durden Do, "Scarlett Johansson is Naked." (At WeSmirch.)

Democrat Hopes Collapse Following Turner Win in New York Special Election

I've used the 1992 comparison previously. George H.W. Bush was defeated for reelection just 22 months after having record approval ratings of near 90 percent. With last night's breathtaking GOP win in NY-9, the left's utter freak out over 2012 has now hit gale force.

There's lots of stuff on this. See Caitlin Huey-Burns, at RealClearPolitics, "GOP Scores Major Upset in NY-9." Also David Seifman at New York Post, "Disaster looms for O in 2012" (via Memeorandum), and Peter Wehner at Commentary, "Panic, Then Rage Ahead for Democrats."

And at Politico, "Dems schvitzing over NY-9 results," and "Twin defeats spark Democratic fears."

BONUS: From Andrew Breitbart, "After Turner Earthquake in Weiner District, Democrats’ Civil War Against Obama Begins."