In shallow holes moles make fools of dragons
Proverb
Image of the Day
Do Higher-Income Earners Pay Their "Fair" Share? Actually, More Than...
Acton Institue and Pope Francis
Political Potpourri
It was not my intent to write two segments in a row on this election season, which has already seen the one-time Iowa leader, Scott Walker, withdraw. A deep bench of other experienced governors, Bush, Kasich, Perry, Jindal, Christie, Pataki and Huckabee, seems to struggle for relevance; this is also true on the Dem side where Martin O'Malley barely breaks into statistical significance against Clinton, Sanders, and Biden. Drudge continues to promote any poll favoring Trump, including a recent one by Reuters showing Trump in the early 30's. But the point is, whatever methodological issues are with any of the other polls, the same polls have shown Trump slumping by maybe 7-8 points from the last reported result. Now whether his act has finally begun to grow stale, it doesn't necessarily mean the Trump campaign is over; Romney and Gingrich slumped after taking the lead during 2011 and surged back later in the campaign. But during a recent Sunday talk soup, Trump made it clear that he'll not stay in the race like Huckabee did in 2008 and Ron Paul in 2012, when it was clear neither had a shot at the nomination.
But on Sunday Talk Soup today, Todd brought up there were new polls on Iowa and New Hampshire, where Trump's lead had shrunk to 5 points, about half of the previous total (in addition to similar showings in NC, TX, and WI). Now, granted, it's better to be ahead by 5 than down by 5, but Trump has already played the negative attack angle on his opponents and it finally started backfiring on him with Carly Fiorina. Once he starts discussing the nuances of policy, he loses the populist angle he's ridden to date. I think the next GOP debate on CNBC late this month will be critical for Trump to firm up his eroding support. More importantly, it looks like Rubio has begun to penetrate the top 3 in the recent IBD, Florida and Wisconsin polls; the 50% hold the 3 outsiders have held for the last few weeks looks like it's beginning to soften.
Ann Coulter, Nativism and Roman Catholicism
I think it's been quite a while since I've mentioned Coulter in the blog. I've never been a fan of Coulter's in-your-face hyper-sarcastic style; I once wrote something to the effect Coulter must be rating herself on how many put-downs she could squeeze in a single sentence. I remember siding with her on some politically correct situation involving a speaking appearance in Canada, but that had more to do with the natural right of free speech than her point of view. I've never bought or read any of her books; I think I had subscribed to her weekly column a few years back; I probably haven't read it for years and am not even sure I'm still subscribed. I still see her on an occasional Red Eye video clip, but you couldn't be further away than we are on immigration; I knew that she was a die-hard nativist.
Now I didn't know about Coulter's anti-Catholicism, and I'm not going to write on Catholicism in depth here; I occasionally write on Catholicism from a political perspective, but I have not yet started a religious blog. (Donohue of the Catholic League does a satisfactory job.) I usually have a certain tolerance for certain anti-Catholic speech, but really sets me off is the grossly misleading leftstream garbage trying to link pedophilia and other forms of sexual deviancy to the Church hierarchy. I do not doubt that some in the Church hierarchy fumbled the cases of a handful of rogue priests, and I think that due process of accused priests seemed to be afforded undue consideration over real victims. But I've seen no evidence that deviancy is disproportionately in the priesthood vs. the rest of society. All the priests I have known over the years, including my favorite uncle, are the best, most godly men I have ever met.
I'm not sure why Ann is anti-Catholic; from what I understand, her father was Catholic (keep in mind nearly 1 of every 4 Americans is Catholic). Her mother is/was Protestant, and one biography I read of her claims that she is a nondenominal, not practicing Christian. Now I myself have been a big critic of Pope Francis on economic matters, but Ann is repeating the kind of anti-Catholic stuff I have heard from the likes of the disgusting Westboro Baptists. This are so obnoxious I don't feel the need to refute them. From Salon, 3 of her disturbing tweets.
Ann Coulter ✔ @AnnCoulter
I'm an American and this is why our founders (not "immigrants"!) distrusted Catholics & wouldn't make them citizens. https://twitter.com/DavidLimbaugh/status/646681931774451712 …
Catholics were not accepted until they became more AMERICAN Catholic less ROMAN Catholic-Harvard's Samuel Huntington twitter.com/DavidLimbaugh/…
Equally accurate statement to the Pope's: The Catholic Church was "largely built by pedophiles." twitter.com/WSJ/status/646…
Facebook Corner
(Reason). How would the government enforce a limit on the number of firearms people may possess?
The problem here is rhat the father is trying to blame the government for not controlling his son; his son is not to blame: The father is in a state of denial. People sometimes collect things as a hobby; Jay Leno collects cars; my dad collected coins and my mom souvenir spoons. We should not have bureaucrats deciding which collections are legal.
Political Cartoon
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
Roberta Flack (with Donny Hathaway), "Where is the Love?". One of my favorite duets...
