Thoughts and Rantings

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Speaking in Michigan today ahead of the state’s primary, Mitt Romney broke with his party’s generally universal opposition to organized labor, saying, “labor unions play an important role in our society.” He noted that they can provide training so their members can learn new skills, “so they’re an important part of America’s economy.” While Romney goes on to say he’s in favor of anti-union right to work legislation and opposes “union bosses,” it’s refreshing to hear a Republican acknowledge that labor unions can serve a legitimate and positive role in the country.

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On the brighter side: Maybe it’s a good sign that getting significant Democratic buy-in for this resolution took some strong-arming. According to Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now, the resolution got 15 Democratic supporters only “after days of intense AIPAC lobbying, particularly of what some consider ‘vulnerable’ Democrats (vulnerable in terms of being in races where their pro-Israel credentials are being challenged by the candidate running against them).” What’s more, even as AIPAC was playing this hardball, the bill’s sponsors still had to tone down some particularly threatening language in the resolution.

But, even so, the resolution defines keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapons “capability” as being in America’s “vital national interest,” which is generally taken as synonymous with “worth war.” And, though this “sense of Congress” resolution is nonbinding, AIPAC will probably seek unanimous Senate consent, which puts pressure on a president. Friedman says this “risks sending a message that Congress supports war and opposes a realistic negotiated solution or any de facto solution short of stripping Iran of even a peaceful nuclear capacity.”

What’s more, says Friedman, the non-binding status may be temporary. “Often AIPAC-backed Congressional initiatives start as non-binding language (in a resolution or a letter) and then show up in binding legislation. Once members of Congress have already signed on to a policy in non-binding form, it is much harder for them to oppose it when it shows up later in a bill that, if passed, will have the full force of law.”

No wonder Democrats who worry about war have the “jitters.”

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USA TODAY’s editorial is right to say that Occupy might lack clear goals on how to move forward, but the movement has accomplished its main original goal: to protest these injustices, not by simply holding a rally and going home, but by keeping the rally going to underscore the seriousness of this problem. Your piece accuses the protesters of sitting around and doing nothing. So maybe they should take up their Second Amendment-sanctioned guns and storm Wall Street and our nation’s capitals. If our country doesn’t change, it could very well come to that one day

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Arpaio said he plans to endorse one of the four remaining GOP candidates in the coming weeks. But the sheriff added he would not make his choice known before he announces the findings of his birth certificate probe at a news conference set for March 1st. This endorsement would be his second in the race; in November 2011, he endorsed then-candidate Rick Perry.

Santorum, he said, seemed to have no problem with the nature of his investigation.

“He had no problems with what I told him that I may be doing,” Arpaio told reporters.

The sheriff said he is conducting the investigation after receiving requests from “the tea party.”

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“Satan has his sights on the United States of America!” Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has declared.

“Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.“

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SANTORUM: The next was the church. Now, you say, “Well, wait. The Catholic Church?” No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic, but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic. Sure, the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country, and the Protestant ethic. Mainstream, mainline Protestantism. And of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country, and it is a shambles.

That’s Rick Santorum August 29, 2008. That stuff is out there. It’s headlined on Drudge and the left has it, and Santorum will have to deal with it. He’ll have to answer it. I don’t know. It’s just not the kind of stuff you hear a presidential candidate talk about. It’s not ordinary in that sense. Snerdley says, “Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of refreshing.” Snerdley likes devil stuff. I mean, he watches movies about it. He has The Exorcist on a loop at home and it helps with his sciatic pain.

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As Jeffrey Bell, author of the new book The Case for Polarized Politics, notes in a Wall Street Journal interview, Santorum’s style of social conservatism is deeply American. No other Western country saw the rise of such a social-conservative movement after the social upheaval of the 1960s. Bell traces American social conservatism back ultimately to the God-given natural rights enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. Sure enough, Santorum is given to quoting the Declaration.

That won’t stop Santorum-haters from portraying him as threateningly un-American. He can play into the negative image of him. In one interview last year, he said that as president he would warn people of the dangers of contraception, a task better suited to a youth minister or Catholic premarital counselor than the leader of the free world.

Santorum occasionally needs to curb his enthusiasms. But the implicit message of his candidacy is unassailable: Denounce and dismiss it as you please; American social conservatism is here to stay.